All Honesty
by My American Fictionary
Summary: Sequel to There Is No Such Place: Naoe and Kagetora carried their old wounds and old misunderstandings merrily into the afterlife... 400 years with a twist!
1. Prologue: An End Has a Start

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Mirage of Blaze, Kubawara Mizuna does.

**Author's Note:** This is the sequel to another story of mine called "There Is No Such Place", set during the original life times of Kagetora and Naoe. Some things in this story probably won't make sense to you if you haven't read the prequel first. I've taken certain liberties with both historical facts and Kuwabara Mizuna's novels. The main difference is that Naoe and Kagetora when they begin their kanshousha careers already have a personal "history" with one another and carry old misunderstandings into the afterlife.

Enjoy :-)

**~*~**

**All Honesty**

_You must not lose it._

_Its power is infallible,_

_Love gave it to you._

-- Alexander Pushkin, The Talisman

~*~

**An End Has a Start (Prologue) – 1585**

**_Kagetora's POV_**

„Saburō Kagetora…"

A name like two sides of a coin. Two halfs of a life. My life. A life that lay behind me and should have for a considerable time. And still, I reacted to the call.

"I am disappointed in you."

I knew I deserved this. Still, it seemed the verbal – or metaphysical – counterpart of being slapped.

"You, my son?" Kenshin asked. "You of all men becoming a vengeful spirit, haunting and harming the innocent? I can say without exaggeration that I find myself aghast, Kagetora…"

What could I say in return? That I was shocked by myself and what I had been able to do? I wanted nothing more than acknowledge my guilt and apologize. However, the still smouldering embers of the very same wrath and bitterness which had enabled me to act against everything that I held dear and believed in kept me from doing so. Hadn't others wronged me first?

If this conversation had taken place during our former lives, I believe my father would have shaken his head in sorrow. I would have been standing with my back turned towards him, my arms crossed in front of my chest. It was a posture of youthful rebellion, one I had never assumed in life. Never but once, that is.

I remembered this one conversation very clearly: my father trying to convince me of his plan to hand the Uesugi over to me after his death, and me trying to talk him out of it. He did much better than I did, of course. I was devoted to Uesugi Kenshin. I would have done anything he asked of me. But that didn't mean I couldn't argue with him over this particular point.

Indeed, it was only when Kenshin let me in on his misgivings that the Uesugi would be lost to Oda Nobunaga without the combined forces of the Hōjō and the Takeda coming to their aid that I conceded. Who if not I could bring such an alliance into existence – a confederacy of the most powerful clans among Oda's enemies? A coalition of tigers and dragons.

I was part of them all. That had to be good for _something_ – and still, it wasn't.

"In your eagerness to avenge your grievances, you poisoned your memory to the world of the living."

"What do I give about the world of the living? What has it ever done for me?"

_Waves crashing against the shore of Odawara. The sea of Japan, weeping… always weeping…_

"_The eldest brother, the heir, while _he _was still in the womb… and then the lady Zuikeiin, too…"_

"_What a sign of misfortune."_

_Walking on my uncle Genan's hand through the gates of Sōun temple. Travelling to Kai under the fu-rin-ka-zan. Becoming exposed to a world of strangers. A world of eyes that followed my every move. _

_The red moon, an uncanny glow that deformed the familiar surroundings of my childhood home. Matsuda Takahide's fist in my clothings, pulling me to the ground. _

_The blade__ in my hand, trembling against my jugular. Weak, the winds outside whispered. Afraid of the pain even now, are you?_

_Echigo. Again, a world of eyes. Looking to Kenshin when everyone else was looking at me. _

_The morning of his burial. __Haruie… The first blood. _

"_We're lost to the greed of Oda if we're going to war against one another! Why? Kiheiji!" _

_The land that Kenshin had entrusted to me… soggy with our blood. _

_Sending Seienin to her brother.__ Lifting Dōmanmaru up to into Norimasa's arms. Watching them ride through the gates to be slaughtered and never return. _

_Glowing sparks falling from the ceilings at Samegao-jō. Closing my fingers around the handle of my sword. _

_Not afraid, this time. _

"He wouldn't even let me see you…" It sounded lost to me, those first words I actually contributed to our exchange.

But when I spoke of _him_, I all of a sudden realized that we weren't communicating with words at all. What transmitted from me to my father was the impression of a male being – a proud, self-assertive presence. Cold but inflammable. Hinted at only and still understood. So I didn't have to explain to my father who it was I was talking about.

"Kagetora…"

It was the equivalent of him putting a hand under my chin for me to meet his eyes when I was reluctant to do so. A gesture he had exhibited ever so often in life. Nobody else had ever done this. They had just let me be aloof and keep to myself as much as I wanted.

Kenshin alone had been able to decipher the complicated language I conceptualized my state of mind with. When I drew back, I wished to be pursued. When I became aggressive, I felt insecure. When I was being obdurate, it meant that I was sorry.

And he had this way of letting me know that he could see right through it.

So now that I failed to explain myself, to apologize for my actions –

_He knows all the same…_

My ire wouldn't survive this. Already I could feel it slipping through my fingers as my gloomy musings used to subside under the influence of sake. But instead of becoming intoxicated I could feel clearity at last sweep through my consciousness.

"Now listen to me."

I always listened to him. And why not? The only time that I didn't, it had resulted in my death. In Haruie's death. In Seienin's and Dōmanmaru's and Norimasa's…

As I stilled and listened for him to hand out my punishment, soft laughter touched me.

"Ever the naysayer," my father smiled into my sinister thoughts. "To think I called you to me just for chatting about the deeds of the past…"

~*~

**Naoe's POV**

A few hours ago already, the nightly storm had subsided, but it seemed to me that the wind freshend when I approached the shore at dawn. It threw glistening waves of water over the sand which smoothened the surface irregularities and washed away the footsteps of the man whose silhouette I perceived in the distance.

His gaze was turned away from where I was walking towards him. I imagined those eyes before I saw them: watching the green and silver sea, restlessly as if looking for lost things. Those amber-coloured orbs that were prone to pulling you in or cutting through you at will.

Cursing inwardly that I recalled their dark-golden slant so effortlessly even after all those years, I called myself to order. That body wasn't his anymore, neither did I look what I had in my previous lifetime.

The past was the past and –

All thought abruptly left me, when he turned around and looked at me with those very eyes.

Fright rippled forth from the core of my heart, not unlike the waves a stone produces when it falls into still water. All the occasions when his eyes had met mine before seemed to blend together. But I just as vividly recalled the last time I had been subjected to this pervasive look.

He had rushed to Kasugayama at the news of Kenshin-kō's death, and I had stepped in his way, petty revenge leading my every step, spurred by my pride wounded seven years before. In a voice so cold that it didn't even leave room for sneer, I informed him that his presence was not required at his father's death bed – and that Kenshin had named Kagekatsu as his sole heir.

Back then, his eyes had been full of barely concealed sorrow, for once lacking even the strength to glare. It made me sick to think of it, now. How pitiful we both had been. It was the only time that I had let my scorn get the better of me. To this day, I wondered what Yasuda Nagahide and Irobe Nagazane who had been with me at the time had been thinking.

Returning his gaze now – equally pensive and haughty as the feline's he had been named after – as if transfixed, I could be certain that he had not recognized me yet. There was a certain irony to me for once being the sole one who was aware of both our identities.

"Kenshin-kō has appointed me as your guardian," I said in a voice fainter than I wished it to be, the wind ripping the words from my lips. "I am Naoe Nobutsuna."

Unlike myself, he hadn't known what – or whom – he was getting involved with when he had accepted his father's mission. I suspected that much and even though he showed no noticeable reaction to the disclosure I was sure it came as a shock to him.

Just when he had thought that the past lay behind him, I had appeared on the scene. Maybe he was thinking of the sheer masses of his brothers armies that branded against the walls of his very last stronghold – led by me which couldn't have escaped him. And chances were, he held me responsible for his son's death, too.

He seemed to take a deep breath. Then,

"Are you not afraid?"

My eyes narrowed at the unexpected question.

"The leader of the enemy forces is still here. The soul who perished at Samegao-jō is standing right in front of you."

He was referring to the time shortly after his death, I realized, and the ongoing verbiage among the people of Echigo and its surroundings. The peasants naturally attributed the incidents to him and the ones who had died fighting by his side. Whether gales blew or lightning struck, somehow it was always regarded as his doing. People had been crazed with fear at times, rurals and nobles alike.

If I hadn't, it was due to the fact that I hardly felt anything at this time in my life.

"I need not be afraid, " I responded carefully. "Because from now on, Kagetora-kō is my lord."

"Can you really accept me as your master?" he demanded to know.

I had been wrong, I realized, when I had thought me knowing before he did would somehow put him at a disadvantage. But he had easily turned the tables on me. In fact, it only meant that I had had time to become anxious whereas he seemed to be dealing with the disclosure of my identity pretty well.

"No bōroku, and no rewards, no reciprocation. Can you still acknowledge me as your master?"

I should have been used to this by now, I thought trying to ignore the hot feeling spreading in my stomach. Nothing would shake him. Anything would drip off him, even the most vigorous rain. I had seen it before, hadn't I?

"Yes," I answered firmly, but – as if to undermine my own words – added: "As long as it is Kenshin's order."

Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, the first however preceptible sign of unease. Good. If my words helped install some tiny measure of inadequacy in him, the better. I had felt it, too, after all, when this task had been dealt and the reasons explained to me.

_There will be four of you, _Kenshin-kō had told me._ I chose you carefully. I want him to be surrounded by a group of companions each of which fulfills another need of his: his best friend, an elder man he can look up to, someone to measure his strength against – and the one who loves him. _

It had taken some time for me to dive through the implication of these sentences. In fact, it seemed that only now I could grasp its full meaning. Meanwhile I had seen the light of the world again through the eyes of a foreign body.

_So I don't deem you as someone worthy of him measuring his strength against?__ The shame due to which I had considered ending my life is what qualifies me for the task of watching over him?_

A heavy squall surged the green and silver sea behind him, pulling at the midnight-coloured strands of his hair. Love was not a word I had ever used in relation to the calamity that had befallen me thirteen years ago and caused such a stain on my honour that apparently not even death could extinguish. Having it thrown at me by Kenshin-kō - from whom I had wished to hide those happenings first and foremost - in such a causal way shook my insides. Had everyone known about it? Had my pride been a mere illusion?

The crux was standing right in front of me, demanding my fealty, and I would give it.

My shame alone had brought me here, though - his deceit, and I wasn't intent on letting myself forget it.

**~*~**

**Author's Note:** Dialogue between Naoe and Kagetora is from vol. 20 of Mirage of Blaze (more or less).

Write me some feedback? Please? :-)


	2. Chapter 1: The Sound of Silence

**Disclaimer: **I don't own them, Kuwabara Mizuna does.

**Author's Note: **I'm awfully sorry it took this long to continue the story. It cost me a lot of time to outline what I was actually going to write. But I'm clear now about what's going to happen in the first 5-6 chapters. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that I'll be able to put them here in short time. This year I'm taking my finals which very often keeps me from writing.

Thanks a lot to everyone who reviewed, sent me PMs and favved the story. It means so much to me!

**Couldbesunshine:** Kenshin choosing the rest of the troop for Kagetora's benefits was my own idea – it appears nowhere in the books as far as I know. I like the idea, though, since as you said it sheds a new light on their interactions. Also, Naoe is the only one Kenshin revealed his reasons for picking exactly these people to. The others don't know of Naoe's role in Kagetora's first life and they don't need to at this point in time ;-)

**Haruna-Hakkai: **Thanks ^_^ For the story, I cannot stick to the outline of the 400 years as they were being passed in canon. Things will develop a bit differently here. I'm curious as to how you will like it.

For some reason, this first chapter turned out to become more of a prologue than the actual one. Practically, it's 14 pages of introspective which I felt were necessary to map out the psychological states of our two heroes as the story starts. I tried my best here to do both canon (what little I know of the prequels) and my own AU story "There Is No Such Place" justice.

Almost 70 years have passed since the events described in the prologue.

Enjoy :-)

~*~

**Chapter 1: ****The Sound of Silence (1652)**

**Naoe's POV**

The village lay quiet. The late afternoon sun threw a golden glow over the uneven snowscape. Hidden underneath the powdery surface, there was a layer of black ice that could quickly and unpelasantly make you stumble and fall. Buckets in hands, I was treading very carefully on the path that led from the well to the half-decayed farmhouse where I had left my sleeping companions. A fine column of smoke erupted from the chimney – proof of the fire I had lit there earlier.

The exorcisms we had performed the night before in the nearby castle ruin had left us all drained. Unsurprisingly, I was the first to get up again after we had decided to spend the day resting. My own exhaustion notwithstanding, my sleep had been fitful and light. To tell the truth, I hardly remembered it ever being anything but. In part, it was naturally due to the task that lay with me for the third lifetime, or rather, for the third possession.

Although I had never even considered disobeying Kenshin-kō, I'd had my reservations against serving under his son. I couldn't forget what Kenshin-kō had named as the reason for me having been chosen as his son's protector. But that had been almost seventy years ago. I had learned to differ between what had brought me into this situation – a subject I extremely rarely touched upon and only in my thoughts – and what being in it was actually like. I had come to terms of some sort with my task. More than that, actually.

Every thought of mine while awake seemed to revolve around the safety of the one I had sworn to protect. Even in sleep, all my senses seemed to be tuned to his each and every movement. This awareness, this identification with my assignment stealthily had come over me as the years passed. Part of me resented this development, of course. But I had such thoughts under my control by now. Waking up in that barn, I immediately sought out the slumbering figure of my lord about a couple of steps away from me.

The five of us had been reunited only the other night after almost twenty years which had been spent with the people from whose children we had stolen our current bodies. Each of us had performed the act of possession before, several times in fact. This had been the first time, however, that each of us had possessed an infant's body in the mother's womb.

Ever since my reappearance in this world in a foreign body, most of my attention had been occupied by what concerned the dead. However, that didn't mean that I was blind or deaf towards the political developments in our homeland. To think that, in the beginning, I had feared more harm to come to Kagekatsu's Echigo from his reincarnated brother's side than from his living enemies. It certainly was a daring move of Kenshin-kō's to put the one measure to control the vengeful spirits of the Otate no Ran in the hands of the one who had lost this war – and had probably more reason than anyone to thirst for revenge.

When he claimed to be indifferent towards the question of who ruled Echigo, I hadn't bought into it at first, but he had never as much as set foot into Kagekatsu's capital as long as his brother lived. And Echigo had been lost anyway within two more generations as Toyotomi Hideyoshi gathered more and more land and his domains swallowed up more and more of the warring states.

Those houses and clans that had been great in our times had almost all vanished from history. In the process, not only the unification of our country had been brought about, but also new armies of vengeful spirits which couldn't let go of their hatred and grief.

We had seen it all. But as time passed, possessing one body after another – carrying the consciousness of the previous lives into the new incarnations every time without the chance to digest what we had witnessed – had proven itself to be a burden too heavy to bear in perpetuity. Possessing an unborn body and spending a normal childhood unawares of the burden that awaited us had felt like finally being allowed to catch up on well-deserved sleep after having spent three days awake in a row.

Natural birth had presented us with an interesting side effect, I thought, eyeing up the features of the one I had come to call "Kagetora-sama". I had been presented with this sight countless times in the past: my master sleeping close by, just out of reach of my hand even if I'd extended my arm towards him. So familiar was this view that by now I had sucessfully broken the habit of remembering another time and place where I had once woken up in even closer proximity to the soul that now housed shells very different from the one it had inhabited when we had first met.

Of course, this was the very moment when natural birth had to go and restore some of our original looks to each of us. Where our lord was concerned, this meant a slightly higher forehead, a longer nose and broader cheekbones, but everything else about this face was Saburo's. Even the black hair fanning out on the empty rice sacks he was sleeping on seemed every bit as silky as back then.

Snowfall apparently having stopped a while ago, I felt that I could just as well get up and make myself useful. The simple chores that came with being part of a small traveller's group which had to provide for their own well-being always had a calming effect on me. There had been a time when I would have considered it beneath myself to cook or wash clothes, but it was long gone. My leaving the barn hadn't gone unnoticed. When I returned I met one of the village people at our door who had brought something to eat for us. They were grateful for us putting the castle spirits to rest and wished to reciprocate. I opened the door and gestured for him to follow me inside.

At once, I noticed that one of the makeshift beds had been cleared in my absence. Kagetora was standing at the window with his back to me, but turned around when he heard the door crack open. His eyes caught mine for a fleeting second before they briefly sought out the water buckets I was carrying and returned their gaze to the outside.

During the last almost seventy years, there had been times when I had wondered whether I had just idolized his appearance as it had been during his first lifetime. I hadn't. Also, people still reacted to him in the same way they had back then. The young peasant that carried the pots with our food was no exception. Laying eyes on my lord, he actually stopped in his movements. His face betrayed no immediate desire. Just astonishment.

"That will be all," I said, mindful of sounding casual. Making a scene would have made the insolence all the more obvious, and I was sure this wasn't in Kagetora's best interest.

The man bowed hastily and left, though not without another glance at my master. Since Kagetora-sama didn't as much as bat an eye-lid at the small encounter, I was unsure whether he had noticed what was going on at all. I remembered how he even as a youth had been able to completely ignore such blatant stares, and there had been lots of them.

Having first met him during a campaign, I had attributed the way my men were unable to keep their eyes off him not only to his beauty but partly to the fact that they were all a bit starved for contact after being out in the field for months. At Echigo, though, I came to understand that this was more of a rule than an exception.

Later, during the war, the subject would arise ever so often. I had done nothing to stop the despicable allusions among Kagekatsu's of how his allies had probably only joined his side in hope for "allowance in kind". I had listened in silence – and lain awake at night afterwards, fighting off the nagging questions whether any of these rumours were true. While I couldn't imagine him offering himself to anyone like this, I couldn't forget how he had fooled me before.

It was the same with his abilities as a leader. On one hand, I had thought him too soft-hearted and magnanimous to enact what was necessary to make him the sole ruler of Echigo. On the other, I had known his cunning first-hand.

In the afterlife, he had presented me with even another version of himself. So different was the General of the Meikai Uesugi Army from both the beautiful, head-strong creature I had embraced in that forest and Kenshin-kō's adopted Hōjō child who had hoped against all hopes until the very end that reconciliation with his brother was possible – I sometimes wondered whether they were actually all the same person.

His self-control was accomplished. The occasional displays of vulnerability – there had been one or two that I had come to witess over the years – made this all the more obvious. They never failed to catch me by surprise. So now his murmured comment almost escaped me. It probably wasn't meant for my ears either, but came as an involuntary reaction.

"I'd forgotten just what a nuisance this appearance used to be."

~*~

**Kagetora's POV**

My eyes flew open when I heard the door being pulled shut. Too late again; another chance blown. He had woken up first of us, as had been to be expected, and immediately had stolen away. He often did that kind of thing early in the morning.

Although his solitary walks didn't actually bother me (I would have done the same if I could) and had never interfered with his duty to protect me, I found myself thinking of the distance between us as a cord at such moments. When I needed him with me, I could just order him to my side. I had done this, ocasionally, just because I could. I couldn't really explain it, but I didn't feel that I needed to, either.

But even then, if he bore his chores with inner resentment, he never showed it to me. The better for him. It hadn't been I who had chosen him for this task as we both hadn't forgotten.

Not for me, as he had implied during our very first encounter as posessors, did he shoulder his burden, but for the dutiful promise he had given to my father. The fealty he had promised to me had been meant for Kenshin – and I wasn't going to fool myself into believing anything about his reasons for protecting me had changed. When he had put my safety over his own in the past, shielded me with his body or even died for me as it had come to pass during our last possessions – he wasn't doing it for my sake.

He would have done this for any person that Kenshin had ordered him to protect. It didn't matter whether it was me or anyone else. In fact, he probably would have served happier under anyone that wasn't me. I understood, however, that there was no good in arguing about the point. He had given my father his word. Also, it wouldn't have been the first time that I was wrong about something. I preferred not to interfere – if only, because I trusted Kenshin's judgement more than I trusted my own.

When my father had explained to me the task that awaited me as the General of the Meikai Uesugi Army all those years ago, he had never once mentioned a guardian. The image struck a dissonant chord with me. Guardian. Protector. Someone who had your back – which literally put them in the best position to stab it. Wouldn't I just know?

To start with, I didn't feel that I needed such a person by my side. Much less was I inclined to believe that Naoe Nobutsuna was fit for the task. Although Kenshin didn't know what had really transpired between his son and his young subordinate, it was still possible that he had acted with reference to those days he knew I had spent in the woodlands with Naoe Nobutsuna and his father all those years ago. He knew that they had taken good care of me back then; I had told him this myself.

But _still_. Naoe Nobutsuna was a former enemy of mine and the right-hand man of my brother after Kagekatsu, too, had become an enemy. What on earth could my father have been thinking to entrust my safety to this person? The ways of the gods were mysterious indeed.

I didn't trust Naoe on so many levels. I didn't trust him with my life, for once. I didn't trust him not to be the murderer of my child. I didn't trust him not to betray my secrets. But what was most important: I didn't trust him to stay.

I couldn't put my finger on where this particular suspicion arose from. I never imagined any of the others to leave. Maybe it was because he kept so many things strictly to himself, not revealing anything of what moved him. If anything moved him at all.

Or maybe it was because I still remembered our very first run-in when he had suspected Kagetora – not knowing that he was actually talking to the object of his distrust – of a lack of identification with his role as Kenshin's heir. Spurned by this comment, I had indirectly accused him of not knowing the meaning of loyalty himself – and had visibly hit a nerve. He knew it himself, then, I had concluded from his apparent speechlessness, that there was some truth in my assumption.

The sun had almost completely sunk when Naoe returned and it was near pitch-dark outside when our companions were getting up one by one. We were gathering around the rice pots the villagers had brought us.

"We really have to do something about the food," Haruie murmured after the first bites.

"A day and a night back in the field and you're already complaining," Irobe chided softly.

"I'm afraid, it's a vicious circle," I said to Haruie. "We're going to where we are needed the most. We're needed the most where people aren't ablo to follow their usual patterns of work and life anymore because of the attacks of vengeful spirits. Where people aren't able to do that, the food usually is a bit meagre. Which leads us to our reasons for being here."

"Still, it's a shame."

"Your cooking isn't that famous either, Haruie," Nagahide reminded.

Next to him, my sworn protector smiled and for a moment even looked as young as his body actually was. Hints that he meanwhile felt at ease within the small army he was part of, despite having been responsible for the deaths of two of his comrades, were sparse, but they were there.

Before meeting Naoe, I had always considered myself quite adept at reading others. I remembered how what was going on in his head had been a mystery to me even when he had encountered me in kind. So how could I expect to make sense of him when he was guarding his innermost thoughts so thoroughly these days?

Maybe if I finally managed to watch him asleep and therefore unguarded, it would reveal something about the many things I didn't understand about him. But I had only ever seen him asleep once and both of us had been very different then from the people we were now.

I had believed it to be false serenity even then. A mask to hide anger with or insecurity – or irritation about my supposedly upstart manners and various way of provoking him when I hadn't known how to deal with my attraction to him. I believed his apparent poise to be an inability to deal with anger and resentment – and meanwhile I knew that I had been right.

Not that I cut much of a better figure when it came to talking about my feelings. The best proof of it was that I hadn't even once brought up the subject of Donanmaru's murder. If this had meant that I wasn't still brooding over it, my quiet would have been excusable. But it had much more to do with a pattern that was established by now.

Having been unable to ever talk openly during our first lives, it came as nothing much of a surprise that we kept our silence in the afterlife, too. That didn't mean that I didn't go on wondering what was going through his head, though. Was he angry? Was he angry _still_? Did he feel ashamed? Was he disappointed? Did he hurt?

_Say something!_ There were still moments when I wished nothing more but to grab him and shake a reaction out of him. _Don't just stand there like a log!_

But I couldn't very well voice any of these thoughts which frequently popped up in my mind every now and then. I was reasonably sure that none of it could be guessed at from my usual composure.

"No, it isn't," Haruie conceded calmly to his cooking skills being insulted. "But then, I didn't have the same training as did Kagetora-gimi either."

The hand holding my chopsticks stilled half-way to my mouth.

"What do you mean by training?" Irobe asked.

Haruie laughed. "Don't tell me you don't know the story of how Kenshin-kō forbade him to join the army and he snuck away from Echigo to fight in the war against Oda anyway. Right," he frowned. "You had died by then, you probably really don't know. Anyway, he ended up with Naoe and his father and told them he was actually Kagetora-dono's servant. That's why he knows how to do this kind of stuff and we don't."

"You werent't even there, Haruie," Nagahide chimed in.

"My father was there and he told me about it later."

This, of course, was the absolutely last subject I wanted to arise, especially while Naoe was sitting with us. There was nothing like a silent pact between us not to let the others know about our common past at any cost. We were just that – silent. He was probably just as relieved as I was when a knock at the door interrupted the exchange.

It wasn't true, I thought getting up to open since I was sitting nearest to the door. He hadn't taught me how to cook. In order not to blow my cover, I'd had to figure this out by myself in short time while at his father's camp. He had taught me other things, though – things that tainted his perception of me far worse than a bit of cooking and washing clothes could have done, and kept him from wholly accepting me as his master.

I knew I had to adress the matter sooner or later. I had known for more than sixty years and done nothing about it.

Outside, a small group of peasants was waiting. For the evening, a musical presentation was planned, the village eldest informed us, having undertaken the effort of coming to see us himself. He had to lean on who I assumed was his grandson. It was the same boy that had brought our food earlier. He sent me a slightly too long look, again.

I felt equally touched by the old man's attentiveness and the prospect of being able to listen to music for the first time in a long while. I told him we would be glad to attend and watched him being led away by his grandson. Turning around to my small group, I met Naoe's eyes. They were narrowed as if he disapproved of my decision.

Cold, so cold. So different from the young commander who had found out my best-kept secret by coincidence and instead of drawing away from me in disgust…

_But what if__ there just isn't anything behind the façade? Maybe that was all in your imagination when you had nothing better to do than let him bed you in the grass…_

I flicked the thought away. We had finished our sparse meal and got up to follow the invitation. Stepping out of the barn, we turned towards the center of the village where the eldest housed. In our way, I suddenly became aware of the boy, his supposed grandson, leaning against one of the houses we were passing by.

This time, he was smiling openly and his eyes were directed straight at me. Now this was impudent even for what I had been used to in my day.

"This is getting annoying," Nagahide muttered under his breath. I couldn't have agreed more. Years ago, the mere fact that someone commented on my being stared after would have angered the living hell out of me. Stares were one thing. But stares being noticed by third parties… they seemed to leave a stain.

Anyway, possessing bodies which bore no resemblance whatsoever to Uesugi Kagetora had given me a reprieve for quite some time. It had only been in this life that memories of what it had been like to be the object of constant speculation and suggestive looks caught up with me thanks to the body I found myself in.

This youngster, however, seemed a lot more obvious and a lot more persistent than my usual "admirers". What on earth did he hope to achieve like this? I snorted inwardly. It would have been amusing if my ability to be amused by such things hadn't been used up during my original lifetime already.

"What are you looking at?" Haruie inquired in not too friendly tone.

The boy laughed softly, as if he alone could truly appreciate the funniness of what was going on. "Am I not allowed to enjoy a bit of diversion in my haven of tranquility?"

As one, we all stopped and stared. The boy started to grin more broadly.

I didn't remember seeing him around the day before. It wasn't very likely for a possessor to have been born here of all places for us to stumble upon him by coincidence. He must have used hypnosis on the villagers to fool them into believing for a short time that he was one of them. A lot of us had this gift at command. Nagahide would have been capable of the same thing and so would I.

I looked at Haruie and saw his eyes widen. A heartbeat before he could reveal our opponent's past-life identity to me, I knew it myself. It should have been obvious from the start, but he had probably applied some kind of shield that kept us from figuring it out at once.

"There is never much tranquility where you are, Kōsaka Masanobu."

~*~

**Naoe's POV**

Eyes narrowed, I sharply glanced at the young man and was met with a cheeky grin. He was younger than us, by several years apparently.

Here I was being confronted with another piece of my past I very well could have done without. I had met Kōsaka Danjō only once during my first lifetime – at the fourth battle of Kawanakajima. But his life and deeds had been crucial to influence mine long before.

_The shouting of men in the distance, the swift breath__ of our horses, their thundering hooves. The crashing and cracking of our castle falling prey to the flames, behind us. Riding on horseback, arms clamped around my uncle's middle as we speed along the river bed leaving the country of my birth behind. The sickening feeling of falling, the gurgling waters engulfing me, part of me never forgetting just how cold that rapid river had been…_

Gradually, I became aware that everyone was staring at me. My companions knew, of course, what had happened at Junshuu when I had been nine years old and still been called Nagao Kagetaka. Did they expect me to act upon those feelings of resentment long buried if never come to terms with?

Ours wasn't a happy profession: putting the vengeful dead to a rest that we ourselves weren't permitted to experience. It was a curious experience to be part of this small army, knowing that I had been responsible for the decease of two of my comrades. I knew what was expected of me. I had been given a chance to redeem myself. And I had never come as low again as at that one time in my life when I had seriously been thinking of ending it.

I wouldn't gamble that away, I thought, looking into Kagetora's eyes as if trying to convince him of my resolve, for the sake of taking revenge on Shingen's general who had led the Takeda troups in their assault on my home country.

"How did you find us?" Kagetora demanded to know from our unbidden visitor.

"Easily," was the fresh reply. "I went where vengeful spirits were stirring the most trouble."

Kagetora looked up and down the youthful body possessed by the Takeda. "Is he…?"

"The eldest doesn't have a grandson. The body is the one I was born in this time around." He looked at us one by one, taking in our appearances, the slight resemblance to what we had looked like during our first lives. "Apparently you, too, got tired of all the baggage and needed a break."

"Was there something in particular you wanted?" Kagetora interrupted.

"Yes, Saburō-dono. I've come to let you know that I presented your compliments on the earliest possible opportunity."

The change Kagetora's features were undergoing was remarkable, if only just a little. For a tiny moment I was able to catch a glimpse of an emotion buried deeply, something wild and literally uncanny. Then the mask was back in place and I couldn't tell whether I had actually seen something or the slight shock it still brought whenever somebody referred to Kagetora as Saburō had made me imagining things.

"I cannot say for sure," Kōsaka added when my lord made no reply, "that they were appreciated, though."

"That is quite enough."

I was at a complete loss about what was going on. Carefully, I looked at my companions, but judging from their expressions, they didn't fare any better. Kagetora on the other hand didn't seem very keen on clueing us in. And what concerned Kōsaka, he seemed not only to notice but to have anticipated my master's discontent at being confronted like this. He very much looked like he wanted to present us with some more wiseacre remarks, but he was interrupted by the soft voice of the village eldest who had appeared by his side.

"Make yourself useful, child." The old man stroked over the pitch-black hair of the one he took for his grandson. I half expected Kōsaka to make use of his abilities and turn the old man's attention elsewhere. But he took a small bow and disappeared in his would-be grandfather's house.

"Come now, young master," the eldest said, his tone a splendid mixture of respect and fatherliness. Brittle fingers on the edge of Kagetora's yukata, he was leading my lord to where the village musicians had started to play their tunes already. Uesugi Kenshin's adoptive son let himself be pulled along by the small, fragile figure without putting up the slightest bit of resistance.

Having been interrupted in my observations like this, the music distracted me for a short while even further. It maybe wasn't the best performance I had ever come to witness – not that I had ever cared much about such things – but the small ensemble featured a flutist. That was all it needed to put my brooding thoughts to rest for a while.

I loved this instrument. It had become a symbol of my returning back to life after risking a glimpse into the abyss. In spring 1571, I had come so close to ending it all. Mere fear of the reasons for my suicide coming to light had prevented me from carrying out my intention. I had hated my weakness. Seeking to hide it from everybody else, I had kept to myself for a long time, spending the days at my father's house and the nights wandering around Echigo and the nearby forests.

There was another reason, though, why I had come to love these nightly hours: the music.

During one of my strolls, someone was playing the flute in the distance. The nightly silence made the music ring out all the more clearly and easily allowed the sound to be transported what I assumed were several miles. I suddenly felt that I had never really listened to music before. I found this one extraordinary – not as penetrating as a goblin's music, but just as bewitching.

The nights to follow, I purposefully sought out the place where I had heard the flute. Once or twice, I even tried to follow the sound, hoping it would lead me to its creator, but in vain. Soon afterwards, rumours were spreading though Echigo about the mysterious "ghost flute" that could be heard at the edge of the forest by night.

The melodies were completely unknown to me, as if they stemmed from a faraway country.

The ones we were being presented with now were much more down to earth, the play itself held nothing of the perfection that unknown flutist in the Echigo forest had displayed. But it was enough to make memory of that other sound flicker to life.

"So," Kōsaka's voice next to me roused me from my thoughts. "What is it like serving the leader of one's former enemy faction?"

"What is it like serving a lord who is trapped beneath a _kekkai_?" I shot back.

To my disappointment though, Kōsaka didn't let himself be baited. "I've only known him as a precocious, aloof child," he announced in a conversational tone, his eyes on Kagetora on the other side of the room. "It probably wasn't his fault that relationships between him and his adoptive brother came to such a bad end. What Kenshin might have been thinking when he made you of all people his guardian, clearly goes over my head."

"That might be because it's simply not your place to comment on any orders Kenshin-kō gives his abiders."

"Surely. I think it a fascinating matter, though. Both his decision and how you two act upon it although it must have caused you some grievances. In the long run, one of you will lose their edge. That's only natural." His gaze shifted to me again. "I imagine it to be you, Naoe Nobutsuna. Not only did you never have a reason to hate Kagetora that went beyond politcal opportunism, but contrary to him, you simply don't have it in you to hold a grudge for more than a few lifetimes."

I glared at him.

He raised his brows. "Are you denying this? You're not even seeking revenge against me and you have quite a reason to, don't you?"

"Just go on like this and I might reconsider my attitude." Junshuu was not something I wished to discuss with this Takeda halflife. I shook my head in irritation. "How do you even want to know that I don't harbour a grudge against you? That I'm not just waiting for an opportunity to let it get the better of me?"

"Because you're different from your master," he smiled at me. Involuntarily, my eyes sought out Kagetora who returned my gaze but probably hadn't been able to hear what we were murmuring to each other from his side of the room.

Kōsaka had been speaking in riddles all evening – or had he? Or was there a hidden meaning that I just couldn't grasp? What was going on that a _Takeda _was allowed to know about while we weren't?

They had met before, this much was obvious – and most probably with none of us yasha-shuu present. Not even me who was supposed to watch his back. I didn't like what this implied. I was impatient to ask Kagetora about it myself. Of course, he wasn't any happier with his father's orders concerning the two of us than I was, but didn't he owe me at least this much trust or this much openness in order for me to fulfill my task and watch over him?

~*~

**Kagetora's POV**

Naoe was suspecting me again. Of what, I wasn't sure and maybe he wasn't either, but he had this look in his eyes. He had watched me like this in the beginning of our precarious pact, whenever I spoke of Echigo or my brother. With everyone's attention being drawn to the musical presentation of our hosts and even Kōsaka shutting his trap for once, I had some time on my hands to ponder what Shingen's general had told me earlier in a roundabout way.

Ujikuni was dead. Killed not on my orders, but still on my behalf and knowing this as he took his last breath. I had known what awaited him at the Takeda's hands and done nothing to spare him this fate.

Where were the others, I wondered. They hadn't come to his aid. He'd finally gotten to know what it felt like. Now what would the rest of my blood clan do? There were five of them left. Would they figure out that their eighth star had something to do with their brother's demise? Things had been set in motion now, though, and I found myself waiting for the other side's reaction.

Conviction aside, better knowledge aside, my father's cause aside, I was still human – and with it came a human's grudges and mortifications. They didn't disappear just because I had seen the errors of my ways. I never said I was impeccable.

Naoe had returned his attention to the village musicians. Maybe something Kōsaka had said to him just then had made him throw me this look. Was he suspicious because he believed to know what I was capable of? Expectedly, his first reaction had been to look towards the others and guess from their expresssions whether I had let anyone else in on my little secret that Kōsaka wisely had chosen not to express verbatim. Having come off the worst the last time I hadn't let him and a group of others in on something important had marked him. Whenever I kept something from the other yasha-shuu, he was prone to believe that this concerned him in a special way and somehow more than the others.

I had detected that trace of self-pity within him from afar years ago. Reluctant as I was then to cross his path, he did an even better job avoiding me. First, all I could feel about this was relief, but as time passed, it began to disturb me. In part, this was due to my fears that he might tell someone about our tryst, but at the same time I was genuinely worried about him. There wasn't much to do about it, though. I couldn't very well seek him out myself or go around asking how he was faring. Still, I had one short conversation with his father – who himself avoided me like the plague after we had returned to Echigo – that seemed to indicate that something was wrong and sincerely so.

It had been my wedding day, a few weeks after we had returned from that very successful and very ill-fated campaign. After the ceremony, I had approached Naoe Sanetsuna to ask in a casual tone whether his son wasn't attending the festivities. I knew it was a stupid move, that nothing good would come of it, but I couldn't help myself. I just had to know what and how he was doing after I hadn't seen him for what seemed like an eternity to me.

Sanetsuna-dono had looked at me for a moment with a fleeting expression that I believed to recognize as thinly veiled contempt and answered that he wasn't. "I think, my lord, you know why that is."

Yes, the old man had definitely had more than an inkling. Of course, it was the last time I made inquieries about Naoe Nobutsuna.

And this was where things should have ended, I thought in a fit of new rebellion against my father's crotchety ideas. Why couldn't he just have chosen Haruie as my protector, or Irobe? Even Nagahide would have been a better option, former enemy or not, than someone who could never truly respect me, who had developed a grudge against me as a pretty plaything that he hadn't had the chance to cast aside when he was finished with it?

As proudly and self-assertively as I demanded his obedience, I couldn't really blame him for his point of view either. Wouldn't anyone be hesitant to take orders from somebody they'd had naked on their back beneath them?

When I ordered him to do things he despised, when I was being haughty or short-tempered – under that false serenity of his, he probably entertained thoughts of my shame. Whenever he was displeased with me, whenever he questioned a decision of mine, whenever he felt humiliated to have to serve a lord that any nonentity undressed with his eyes – memory of our sordid past would inevitably come back to him. What kind of master could I be to him under these circumstances?

Sighing inwardly, I turned my gaze away from his unrevealing features with difficulties – and found myself looking into Kōsaka Danjō's eyes who apparently had been watching me watching my retainer. A fine smile tugged at his lips.

I couldn't even guess at the expression I had been wearing. Clenching my fists, I half expected Kōsaka to comment on it, but he surprised me by cocking his head towards the small group of musicians which had just stopped playing and bowed as well-deserved applause rang out.

"Why don't you play for once?"

My retainers all at once turned around to look at me in surprise. There weren't many things that I had managed to keep to myself, spending so much time with them.

I hesitated. I hadn't played in several lifetimes – never again since my first life, to be exact. After leaving Odawara, I had used this as a link to my past, to Ujiteru-ani. Nobody in the Uesugi clan had to know about it. I took up the habit of playing only at night, in a distance from Echigo. When rumours began to spill through the capital nonetheless, I had abandoned my pastime.

I didn't want to reveal my affinity to music to my retainers, but Kōsaka had already snatched the instrument from its owner who apparently didn't dare protest. They were all looking at me. Feeling uncomfortable among others, under their curious stares, was by no means a new experience for me, but now I couldn't help but squirm a little. Ironically, I only saw one possibility to put an end to this.

Gingerly, I got up from my seat and took the small wooden flute from his fingers. It was slightly different from the kind of flute I was used to, the one I had learned to play with as a child under my elder brother's tutelage. It felt warm from the hands it had passed through. There were scrapes everywhere on its surface. But my fingertips were gliding into the right places with the greatest naturalness.

I collected my breath and blew into the fragile shell of birch wood.

~*~

**Naoe's POV**

Foreboding gripped me, as I watched how Kagetora took hold of the instrument and placed it in between his slender hands, his fingertips finding the holes in the wood with much practised ease. His gaze cast downwards, he set the wooden piece to his lips and took a breath in.

Then, the first notes spilled from the instrument, spreading throughout the room and taking possession of every living soul within. The melody pierced my marrow and bone, spinning away from this time and place with the sheer beauty of the sound.

It would have been too much to claim that I actually recognized the piece. My memory wasn't that expert when it came to music. But I most certainly recognized the style of it, bewitching as goblin music.

For a moment I felt like being ripped away from the small room, from my companions standing stockstill and the peasants listening with their mouths open. The sound of the flute seemed to get through the dense trees of the Echigo forest to where I was sitting, harkening to the tone of the finely tuned instrument as it freed me for a while from my gloom and lifted the weight of the world from my shoulders.

The unknown flutist – whose music I had sought out night after night – had been him. It had been him all along.

Incredulously, I watched the fine, painfully familiar features, the downcast eyes, the expression of silent concentration. I had been unable to make the connection back then because I hadn't even known that he knew how to play until now.

The one who had thrown me into the depths of Hell, had been the one to also pull me back up again. The irony of it moved me in a strange way. Gratefulness for the comfort his music had brought me at that time mingled with the realization of my delusion.

_I just can't seem to ever get a step ahead of you, can I?_

Still, this hadn't been another plot of his, even if the feeling of surprise and having been tricked was awfully familiar. He couldn't have known that I was listening. Much less could he have anticipated how important his music had been to me at this point in my life. It had felt like being purified every time I listened.

Why had he done this anyway? Keeping his gift to himself and not telling anybody? So that some part of his life could be his and his alone?

_Even more secrets, Sabur__ō? _I thought, but for once I didn't feel bitter, but intrigued.

There were so many things I didn't know – leave alone understand – about him. I remembered the words Kenshin-kō had used to describe me, as if my utility and contribution to his cause had been determined by my falling in love with his son, and how trapped I had felt at the sentiment. But there was the other side of the shield. _The one who loves him, _Kenshin-kō had called me. Not: the one he loves. It was all about what Kagetora needed, after all.

The last notes swirled away. Across the room, I met Kagetora's dark-golden gaze as he set down the flute. We had never spoken of it. Back then, it had seemed the best or rather the only solution. In later lives, this silence had become an established fact which meant that seventy years later, I was still at a loss about what he had thought of his lapse – and what I could allow myself to think of it.

This was it. This was all the old questions had needed to rise to the surface.

_What did it __mean to you? _

A new thought had been added to the gallimaufry of my convictions and self-evident assumptions. That maybe – just maybe – he'd had the very same reason for his nightly strolls as I did. That maybe he, too, had been plagued by memories and had chosen this very measure to find some peace of mind – unwittingly presenting me with it as well.

_What were you thinking__?_

I was watching myself as if from afar: letting go of the parapet after decades and falling into the familiar trap.

_Are you…? Or have you ever been?_

~*~

**Author's Note: **The last two phrases are from somewhere, I think. Most probably a movie. Not mine anyway.

The part about Kagetora's brother Hōjō Ujikuni (which is probably still rather cryptic to you, but it will be explained during the chapters to follow) was inspired by a short story from cerise tennyo.

And – surprise: Naoe had a life before he became Naoe. I don't know who led the attack on the Sōsha Nagao clan, the part of Kenshin's wider family that Naoe belonged to, but I made it Kōsaka for the sake of the story.

From what I've read about the prequels, the Uesugi seem to be struggling with several enemies for the length of a few centuries before meeting their main opponents. I don't have such a long breath :-) As a result, from the Hōjō brothers over Takeda Shingen to Oda Nobunaga everyone will step on the scene much earlier than they do in canon.

Personally, I like stories with long chapters but I think I might have overdone it with this one. What do you think – too long? Too short? ;-) Just about right?

Oh, and: How did you like it? :-) Shall I go on with it?


	3. Chapter 2: Map of the Problematique

**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, Kuwabara Mizuna does.

**Author's Note:** Er, … hello. It's me again. Gosh, I'm so sorry that it took – what? almost three months? to write the next chapter. My schedule is really getting ridiculous. But I'm writing it as promised. Most of the chapters have been outlined and if I could as I wanted I would skip school and just write them down, dmt.

Thanks a lot to everyone who encouraged me about this story and/or my writing in general! I probably couldn't fnd the energy right now to go on writing if it weren't for all the nice reviews and PMs.

**Osen: **No, it wouldn't be impertinent ^_^ If the readers start skipping sleep in order to read, the writer should follow their example and skip sleep in order to write ;-) Thanks a lot for the kind words!

I came to a conclusion concerning the part of the other clans/enemies within the plot: The first chapters will mostly be about Naoe and Kagetora with only hints at what is going on around them. This will change later, but so far these two occuppy all my energy so I can't write about what everybody else is up to.

This is set 9 years after the last chapter. It's not quite as long, but almost.

Thanks for bearing with me. Enjoy :-)

**Chapter 2: Map of the Problematique**** (1661)**

**Kagetora's POV**

"_BAI!"_

Sparks from the bonfires were flying with the energy set free by the exorcism, whirling up and above my head to vanish in the pitch-black sky over Edo. Startled cries and cheerful laughter erupted around me. The energy burst had been perceived as a sudden blast of air by the _setsubun_ revellers who had to hold on to their clothing. Some of them were tilting their heads back to watch the fire sparks travelling with what they believed to be the night wind.

In silence, I undid the _mudra _formed by my fingers and let my hands drop to the sides. Distracted by the fires, the lanterns, the music and, of course, the sheer masses of people in the streets, nobody had noticed a thing. We were definitely getting good at this. I turned away from the scene of my last exorcism and went as quietly as I had come there.

I was moving with ease through the celebrating crowds. Once or twice someone called out to or stumbled against me. I was twisting around my human obstacles, fully aware of how out of place I was here. After living in the countryside for almost thirty years of my current life, I couldn't help but feel a bit overwhelmed at the variety of sounds, smells and lights of the capital.

In all of my lives, I had never set foot into a more lively and densely-populated place. The divergence between this bee-hive atmosphere and the sleepy nest in shore that I still recalled from the time when it was ruled by the Hojo clan couldn't have been more striking. Only after the fall of Odawara in 1590 which marked the end of the Hojo, Edo had become the capital of the Tokugawa shogunate and successively grown into a major marketing spot.

Thinking of Odawara and how it had been besieged, famished and captured by what was now the ruling dynasty of Japan, brought a sense of bitterness with it in spite of all that had happened between me and my blood. _My birth place had to fall for this city to rise._ Strange, I mused, how this thought manifested itself after all this time, after all the people involved were long gone. Letting go of the past was one thing. Not to be reminded of it – another.

I wasn't the only one with this particular headache, of course. Otherwise I wouldn't have been here tonight, exorcising the vengeful spirits of Edo's own deceased. The spirits in question had all died during the Great Fire of Meireki four years ago when large parts of the city had been devastated by a terrible conflagration. Now fire death was a gruesome thing to suffer without a doubt, but this was the first time that I had encountered the vengeful spirits of people who hadn't been murdered or slaughtered in battle. Unlike the war deaths, theirs couldn't be blamed on an individual or even a group of people. It was nobody's fault that they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Those who had survived the catastrophe had suffered enough hardships in the aftermath even without being haunted by the vengeful spirits of their less fortunate fellow men. It had taken over two years to reconstruct the destroyed parts of the city. Even now there were traces of the conflagration visible to me who hadn't been there to witness it himself. But from what I could see, people went on with their lives and – tonight at least – quite cheerfully and energetically so.

_Kagetora-sama?_

My eyes cast downward, I mentally sought out my companion who had headed into a different direction when we had split up in order to pursue the vengeful dead of Meireki. Naoe was at the meeting place agreed upon and apparently had been for a while. Underneath the consciously communicated question, traces of apprehension were barely detectable. I had taken my time to return. Involuntarily, I asked myself whether he could also pick up on the mood I just found myself in.

_I'm on my way._

"Demon go out! Happiness come in!"

Startled, I took a step backward when a load of beans pattered to the ground right in front of me. I lifted my gaze, breaking the mental connection to my retainer. The roasted soybeans were supposed to scare the _oni _away – wicked, horned demons of superhuman strength. A group of townspeople disguised as _oni _was crossing the street right behind me. The soybeans had been meant for them, but had nearly hit my feet instead.

Beans for the demon. How fitting. According to popular belief, they hated the sound of the pattering beans. I had to admit that it threw me off a bit, too…

_Setsubun. _It was the right night of the year for casting out demons – or _onryou_, for that matter. I remembered celebrating this festivity, too, when I had been living with the Takeda at Kai. My blood clan hadn't commemorated this holiday.

At the gates of Yoshiwara, there was a permanent coming and going. Yet my instantly sought out Naoe's shadowy figure at the entrance to one of the backstreets. Although he looked at me searchingly from under his cape, he didn't ask me what had prompted me to cut him off earlier. Naoe wasn't a man of many words and so was I when I was with him.

I set my foot on his, reached out for his hand and let myself be pulled up to sit on horseback behind him. I wanted to say something about the direction towards our resting place for the night, but all of a sudden, my stomach was growling quite audibly.

Unruffled, my guardian turned around halfway to hand me a small package. Inside, I found a portion of the holiday dish that had been prepared throughout the city. It was typical for Naoe to think of me not having yet eaten.

In silence, we headed for the city gates.

**Naoe's POV**

Outside the lamp-lit quarters of Edo, the night was pitch-black. The travellers who had left the city through the Northern Gates scattered into various directions. I had never cared much for festivities, so I welcomed the silent ride. With the path narrowing and alternatively ascending and cascading, Kagetora had to hold on to me once or twice in order not to lose his balance. We had often travelled in this manner during the last decades. He would always insist on me taking the reins in such cases and him sitting behind me, not the other way round.

"We'll go back to Edo a few days from now to see if any of them are still around," Kagetora said and I knew he was looking back to the city over his shoulder without turning around myself.

I lowered my head in acceptance. It was possible that we hadn't gotten all of the spirits although I had made a point of not letting myself be put off by the housing some of them had taken. "I am fairly sure that there aren't any left in the Northeast," I said.

It took a moment for the meaning of my words to sink in. He leaned a bit to the right in order to study my face from the side. "You went into the _eta_ quarters?" His hands had fallen from my sides.

"Yes," I answered calmly. "The spirits led me there." I had never before set foot into such a place, and I was sure Kagetora hadn't either. I was curious about his reaction.

"Forgive me, Kagetora-sama," I said. "Would you have preferred me to undergo purification afterwards?"

He paused. "No," he said decidedly. "We're involved with death ourselves all the time. Also, I don't see a difference between _eta_ being haunted by onryou and other people being haunted. Or did they seem less scared to you?" He sounded truly curious. Due to their professions which all in some kind dealt with dead bodies – they were tanners, butchers, gravediggers and washers of corpses – they were held in low respect by the general public and were regarded as impure. Maybe they were also likely to be fearless towards things that involved death because they were simply used to them. Like vengeful spirits for example.

I had been exorcising ghosts for seven decades and still had to meet one that spooked me. But then again, we _were _ghosts.

Kagetora was planning to meet the others in a small coastal guesthouse about two hours away from Edo. The owner had to get up in the middle of the night to provide us with food, a fire and sleepingplaces. Dressed like peasants and having gone without a bath for several days, we weren't making a good first impression. Kagetora's mere presence, however, commanded the necessary respect ad we were easily being given what we asked for.

I couldn't help wolving down the food as I had been starving for hours. Next to me in front of the fireplace of the small room we had been given, Kagetora was watching me from the corner of his eye. He probably pondered the fact that I had brought something to eat for him to the meeting point, but not for myself.

We were sitting close, the accommodation allowed for nothing else. We weren't actually touching, but I could feel the heat coming from the skin of his naked arm next to mine. I was more aware of it than I was of the fire's glow in front of us. I had been in this situation before, never knowing if I was the only one to realize the tangency between us.

I didn't know whether he had moved or I had shifted, but for a second we actually were touching. With an almost unnoticeable jerk, Kagetora broke away from me. He wasn't meeting my eyes but he had stopped eating.

I wasn't surprised when he said: "I'll go for a walk."

"Shall I accompagny you?" I asked although I knew already what the answer would be.

I watched him leave, never being sure whether he just felt stifled in the small chamber or if the physical contact had prompted his abrupt departure. There never had been a retainer that spent as much time as I did wondering about what his lord might be thinking.

**Kagetora's POV**

I had always known myself to be a person drawn into various directions by conflicting sentiments for most of the time. The funny thing about it was that – as I also knew – to my subordinates I seemed the epitome of singlemindedness. I did my best to keep them with that belief even when – or actually because – I perfectly knew it to be anything but correct.

Naoe's recent behaviour and my reaction to it made the best example.

It wasn't too long ago that I had wished for a change in his attitude, for him to reveal a bit more about himself, to make it easier for me to guess what went through his head on various occasion… It had seemed to me that he kept his thoughts to himself and now that he didn't any longer or at least not as much as he used to – I wasn't satisfied either. It roused my distrust. I had done nothing to earn his opening up.

What did he plan to do?

Actually, changes were almost unnoticeable. But to me who had spent decades trying to decipher the man and what drove him, they were downright significant. He was – more interested in me than before, in… what I thought of him, I realized in wonder. That was the crux of it. Until recently, he had never shown any real indication that he cared about whether I approved of him.

I could only come up with one explanation for his softening towards me and it wasn't flattering. While we didn't belong to the mirror-owning class in this lifetime, I knew that I looked very much like I had when we first met. The way people reacted to me told me so. Naoe, too, couldn't evade his attraction to my appearance.

A gust of moist wind hit my face when I left the guesthouse. Dawn was only a couple of hours away, I could sense it. These were quiet times – the kind of quiet to appear right before a storm. In the near-darkness, my gaze – trained to adapt to the surroundings even at starless nights – sought out the coastal line that effectively led out of the bay of Edo, towards the Sagami bay. Towards Odawara.

I hadn't been this close to home since I was seventeen and about to leave for Echigo. If I left now and didn't stop on the way, I could have been there by sunset… But there was no moon tonight. I didn't want to visit Odawara on a moonless night. Also, I didn't know what awaited me there.

I had come to terms with the borrowed life I was living. I had accepted my task not only because it was what my father wished me to do but also because I felt that I was doing the right thing. Grief sporned these spirits. They were easily dealt with by comparison. Families were going to be the real problem as it showed more and more clearly. When there is bunch of people related by blood they will stick together, confide in each other, reflect on their misery and fan each other's ambitions. And their numbers were increasing.

So far, none of them had started fighting each other. They were still trying to find their feet. But it was only a question of time until they were all assembled. Slowly, but surely I came to recognize the weight of the task Kenshin had set for me. I had taken on it without really thinking about what it would mean. I was glad that I could see more clearly now. Second-guessing my decision never even crossed my mind. I just didn't know… Sighing heavily I held up my hands in front of me and looked at them. I just couldn't say for sure that I would be able to exorcise Ujiteru-ani.

In deep thought, I stumbled back to the guesthouse. Entering our room, I found Naoe cowering in front of the fireplace, his back turned to me. Up until recently, he would have left it at that. I would have taken my place near the fire, he would have handed me some food – and waited whether I would speak up first. But not anymore. Without leaving his cowering position, he half turned around and looked at me.

I was confident that none of it showed on my face, but under that scrutinizing gaze, I all of a sudden felt like a twelve-year-old caught out of bed at midnight.

"I wish you wouldn't do this," he said in a tone that was so unusually full of sentiment that I couldn't help but feel at fault for a couple of heartbeats. It didn't last long, of course, but evaporated with his next words.

"How am I supposed to look after you when you go off wandering around without me knowing where to find you?"

I suppressed a snort. "My father ordered you to look after me, as you put it. He didn't order me to behave in a particular way that makes looking after me easy."

I crossed the room and sat down next to him, but by the side of his which wasn't half-turned to where I had been standing before. As a consequence, he had to turn his head again if he wanted to look at me. Which he did, reluctantly as if pondering my reasons to choose this place to sit in order for him having to do just this…

I shook my head slightly. Things were getting weird. There never had been a clan lord who spent as much time as I did wondering about what a certain vassal of his might be thinking.

**Naoe's POV**

The following day brought rain, interspersed with tiny ice pellets. After a brief walk after breakfast in the glacial wind, we decided to stay inside and rest for the remainder of the day. The joyless weather undoubtedly would further delay the arrival of the rest of our companions.

The night before had been short, of course. I wasn't too unhappy to be able to catch up on some sleep. While we often worked at night, we weren't always able to rest during the following day. Awakening around midday I decided to take another walk and out myself on the look-out for the others. The were supposed to be close-by, wandering the Sagami peninsula.

When I returned, Kagetora was awake, but still lying on his futon, hands clasped behind his head. He had set up one leg and placed the other on top of it, wiggling his foot up and down impatiently. He stopped it when he saw me standing in the door. The gesture of a child that didn't have a care in the world. Intrinsically, he was older now than he had been at the time of his first death. He seemed excited about something. Or indignant, it was hard to say.

"Nagahide has contacted me," he said. "It seems, the Satomi are complete."

Oh. I blinked. "They really did it?" I shot the door behind me.

My Lord nodded. This was the first time that one of the clans had actually reunited. We were aware that members of several of the old houses had reincarnated. Some of them, like Kōsaka Danjō, we had met ourselves. But these were occasional instances. They were usually full of resentment, but unorganized and therefore less harmful than the common spirits. There were even rumours about the Hōjō brothers, but –

"The Satomi!" Kagetora exclaimed, propped himself up on both ellbows and shook his head in disbelief. "They were about the last I expected to manage reunion of all their houses. I didn't think they had it in them at all."

I couldn't suppress a smile. The Satomi had once formed an allegiance with Kagetora's blood clan, broken it later, formed a new allegiance, broken that one, too… There wasn't much love lost between the Satomi and the Hōjō. Maybe my Lord was displeased to see the Satomi excel at what his own family hadn't managed to do so far.

"My money was on the Oda," I said in an almost consoling tone.

"So was mine," he flashed me a look. "Oda or Takeda – and since Shingen is still trapped in Matsumoto, it was an easy choice."

"Can we do this?" I asked. Kanshousha – those who had taken true possession of a body by ousting the actual owner's soul – we faced with certain difficulties. We could exorcise them, yes. But only if we killed the host body first.

"I'm not sure it will be necessary to exorcise them all, at least not at this point," Kagetora said with a dismissive gesture. "I'm much more interested in what they plan to do now. As a clan, I mean. Will they try to overthrow the Tokugawa and take over the country?" He paused. "Also, they will probably know first hand what their dear neighbours are planning in the meantime."

I understood perfectly what he was alluding to. If the Satomi had done it, so would the others sooner or later. We needed to know at once when another clan managed to rise.

"Who would have thought that the Satomi could proof themselves useful for something one day? We have something to give them in exchange, of course," Kagetora pondered.

"They are likely to be interested in what we can tell them about the developments in their… absence."

"Exactly. Well, as long as it's not someone of Hōjō blood who does the telling. They don't get along."

"Someone," I repeated incredulously. "_You_ are of Hōjō blood."

Kagetora stood up. "But Satomi-dono doesn't know this. He died years before I was even born. My grandfather was his main opponent in the fight over the Sagami region."

"So?"

"So," he repeated firmly, "I'm going to reveal only part of who I am."

The words were out before I could even think of biting my tongue. "That shouldn't be too hard for you."

We both froze.

**Kagetora's POV**

This was where it could have ended. Neither of us would have needed to pursue the subject – the mere hint to it – any further. We certainly hadn't done this much talking to each other in decades. But of course we didn't choose the easy way out.

I should have seen this coming. I had, actually. How much longer could we have gone on like this? Fighting, wandering and sleeping within an arm's reach of each other for a lifetime and then restart the cycle again – and never once talk about our past to each other? I was shocked nonetheless that the topic would pop up just like this.

Naoe was doing the talking at first. I was almost sure that he hadn't planned on adressing the matter tonight or any time soon. But just as I had suspected, he had been turning this over in his head for quite some time – composing what he was going to say if the opportunity to rub the past into my face ever arose.

He said that he wasn't sorry for this to come up even though time and place probably were not perfect for this conversation. But it was about time for us to talk about these things at last.

I didn't want this. I didn't like him being so straightforward about it. He seemed to believe he had the upper hand. In any case, it was unusual for him to rise to speak like this when we were alone with each other. Our conversation had been very limited these last decades. I desperately wished for one of the others to show up now.

In lack of a better utterance, I asked: "What exactly do you want to talk about?"

He was silent for a moment, his eyes locked with mine. That was unusual, too. "I want to know why." He didn't explain himself any further. But then, it was me he wanted to do the explaining.

Basically, he was asking me to put myself into the shoes of the… _child_ I had been then. There really was not better word. He wanted to know what I had been thinking, feeling. I wasn't prepared for this. I would have to dig open the burial ground that was my memory and it would be unpleasant. He was asking too much of me.

"I don't have an answer to that question," I finally said, pleased that my voice was firm. As a matter of fact, I just wasn't ready to look for the answer.

Naoe's gaze didn't waver. "Do you understand what kind of position you put me in by not telling me who you were?"

That would have been his major issue, wouldn't it? What everybody else might have thought of him if this had come to light. "Of course, I do."

There were exact regulations about this kind of relationships, about who was allowed to do what with whom. It wouldn't have been out of option for me at all to take a companion from among my father's retainers – Kagekatsu, as an example, had done so with Kanetsugu, the young man who later married Naoe's widow. But what I had done by giving myself to Naoe would have been inacceptable under any circumstances. Both he and I would have been accused of a misdoing.

"Information was kept from you so you crossed a line you wouldn't have crossed otherwise," I proceeded. "In other words, since you didn't know that you were violating a taboo you cannot be held responsible for the implications."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" he asked incredulously.

And here I had been thinking that I could hit on an expedient just like that. He wanted me to take the blame, to admit that I had tricked him, that I had lied to him and done him wrong. Looking into his eyes where the embers of his grudge were still smouldering, I was finally being presented with his true self, his real thoughts and feelings. It felt as if I had put the lid off a barrel and found that it held nothing but bitterness that threatened to slop out.

For the first time, I understood that his outrage was not mainly about the dangers of being publicly ridiculed for his mistake. The real humiliation meant being cast aside by someone else. Our tryst hadn't ended on his terms. His pride couldn't forgive me that.

"For myself?" I asked, folding my arms in front of my chest. "Did you never do such a thing?"

"Certainly, I never –"

"Do you really want to spite me because I put you through the same thing you would have subjected me to?"

"I would have?" Naoe's voice matched my own in coldness.

"Don't play daft with me," I said impatiently. "This encounter didn't mean anything more to you than it did to me."

He winced, but he caught himself at doing it. Within the blink of an eye he had put his mask back on and left me to wonder whether I had been imagining things.

"I wouldn't have touched you if I had known who you were. As you very well know, I took you for a servant."

"Yes, for somebody else's servant. I wasn't for you to touch either way." _And still, you did._

"That is a completely different question." Anger was clearly audible in his voice by now.

"Are you sure? Tell me, would the ending have been any different if I had been a servant? Would you not sooner or later have discarded of me – as you did with all the others?"

That effectively shut him up. His gaze was still locked with mine as if searching the depths of my eyes for something that he had always overlooked and now had only caught a glimpse of.

It made me nervous, but it wouldn't have been wise to show this. "Don't look at me like this. I know there were others before and afterwards. Probably lots of them. Did you ever spare a thought to what they went through after you were finished with them? Of course not," I answered my own question without giving him the chance to do so. "You would have thrown aside Saburō just as easily. But for some reason you start pitying yourself when the same thing happens to you."

He made a desponded sound, exhaling. "Do you really believe that?" He had become very calm all of a sudden. There was something wistful in his eyes. "You really think I would have just ended it there?"

Wouldn't he? For once, my words deserted me. Would he actually have kept me? The thought occurred to me for the very first time. If so, then I might have judged his motivation rashly, and for a sickening moment or two, I felt that I was doing him wrong again by reducing his pain to wounded vanity. It wasn't fair.

He had really been fond of Saburō. He had really liked… _me. _

It was an outlandish thought. He hadn't been drawn to my heritage or my status – or the power and influence that came with my standing as Kenshin's son because he knew nothing of them by the time he met me.

What he wanted had been – just me.

_Just your pretty face, _a voice from the back of my mind sneered.

Flinching, I felt that I should be thankful for the reminder nonetheless. That was what it always came to, wasn't it? That cursed, so-called beauty of mine which everyone was so keen to touch – but no one to keep. Nothing in Naoe's behaviour back then had indicated that he was any different in this regard. Oh, he certainly had enjoyed it while it was in his hands, but would he still have wanted it after a week? A month? A couple of years? Ridiculous.

I took a deep breath. I couldn't allow myself to feel embarrassed or intimidated by something this retainer of mine did, this guardian person I had never asked for. I couldn't allow the past to wield such an influence over me. Naoe was mistaken if he believed all it would take to shake my resolve were some cryptic questions.

I decided to attack instead.

**Naoe's POV**

There was a tiny moment during which Kagetora's shields had been lowered due to some inner dispute. I could detect as much but was too daft to interrupt his musings. If I had reached out for him at that moment, if I had pressed for an answer to the questions I had just thrown at him – maybe I could have seen that what he did and said stemmed from insecurity rather than arrogance. But I wasn't to understand this about my lord for many, many years.

To be fair, he couldn't have known about my plans of taking Saburō with me. I hadn't spoken with him about any of what I intended once the campaign would be brought to an end. I had been convinced there would be plenty of time to talk about this later…

_I had woken at sunrise to find Saburō using one of my arms as a pil__low. A strand of his hair had fallen over his face and moved with his gentle breath. Careful not to wake him, I turned to the side in order to study his sleeping features more closely. The night before had brought some revelations. I had been foolish to think that sensual pleasure could provide an antidote to suffered atrocities. I was happy that he seemed to enjoy what we were doing and initiated some of it himself, but he still had a long way to go before he could leave the past behind. _

_What those men had done to him had wounded him deeply. It wasn't surprising that he perceived himself to be surrounded by a hostile and violent environment – and to a degree that was even true. But he was done with the bad experiences__ now, I promised both him and myself. He had me now to hold him and protect him. _

_Inwardly, I shook my head about my own foolishness. I had seen so many men fall for beautiful boys years their junior and yet it seemed that I couldn't avoid doing the same. Except of course that the boy I'd found myself falling for wasn't just beautiful but also clever, headstrong, adept with a bow and able to bully a grown-up warrior into submission with a single glance.__ The contrast between his outward untouchableness and the fragility he revealed to me alone only added to my infatuation. _

_I wondered which deity I was to thank for this treasure to have fallen into my hands. If I was lucky, he wouldn't lose his ability to blush so nicely somewhere along the way…_

_This wa__s it, then, I thought in wonder, stroking back that strand of hair from his face. This was the feeling extolled in poetry and songs the essence of which I had never understood until now. I could only hope Kenshin-kō's adopted son would understand it, too, and allow Saburō to remain with me. _

_Hi__s eyelids started to flutter. Soon after, we were on our way back to the resting place where things were about to reveal themselves._

So maybe he really had believed that I would have just thanked him for a good time and sent him on his way if he hadn't turned out to be my future clan lord. It was painful to recall my actual feelings and intentions, my disappointed hopes, to know that words failed me to express them.

He wasn't finished with me yet. As reluctant as he had first been to discuss the matter at all, as persistent he showed himself now in not letting go of it. Apparently, he had decided to bring the past and all talk of it to a conclusion once and for all.

"Let me ask you a question in return, Naoe. Why are we having this conversation, and why now? Is it because of this?" He made an impatient gesture towards himself that was supposed to indicate that something about his body this time around must have reminded me of what he had looked like during our first encounter. He believed this to have spiked my sudden interest in the past. "I think it must be."

He turned around to me again. "I suggest we end this here. Maybe I did you wrong. Maybe you would have wronged me if I hadn't beat you to it. But you're making a mistake if you think you can demand some kind of apology from me now. You could have from Saburō, maybe even from Kenshin's son."

His eyes were glittering in the fire-light. "But not from your lord."

I gasped.

"You owe me allegiance. You will follow my bidding and I hereby forbid you to ever bring this up again."

Dumbfounded, I looked at him. I couldn't believe that he would use his rank, his command over me in such a situation. I had made the mistake of mixing up my memories of Saburō with the General of the Meikai Uesugi Army. They weren't the same. There simply was no possibility for me to ever find out what his true intentions had been.

"It is the past," he added as if reading my thoughts. "What I was thinking back then is none of your concern."

So this was it. He would simply silence me as he had the right to do as my Lord. Indifferent towards my thoughts and feelings, he just wished to forget about his own trespasses. At this moment, I was more convinced than ever that he had never felt the slightest remorse about his little escapade. He had never had any feelings for me.

A fierce desire to wound gripped me, to strike as deeply as possible and with the sharpest tool at my disposal. I took a deep breath.

"You never saw any of this coming?" I asked in a conversational tone although my heart was pounding in my chest.

When Kagetora just looked at me questioningly, I decided to make my train of thought a bit more clear. "When Kenshin first asked you to command the Meikai Army and spoke to you of your future comrades in arms – you never imagined to meet a former," I paused theatrically as if searching for the right expression, "admirer?"

He paled visibly, but his voice was steady when he replied: "I don't know why my father picked you. I certainly imagined anyone but you to be part of the Army."

"I wasn't necessarily speaking about myself." I allowed myself a tiny smirk. "Just admirers in general."

Kagetora had become very still, I noticed. I had always wondered whether the rumours that floated through Echigo in our day had eventually reached his ears.

"Chances probably weren't exactly small that you would end up with one of us, were they?"

He wasn't stupid enough to act as if he didn't know what I meant by that. He straightened himself, his eyes fixed on me. "I would drop this now, if I were you."

It certainly would have been better for me. But it was the most exhilarating feeling to have his full attention for the first time since we had become possessors. Driven perhaps by the need to afflict myself, I met his tiger's eye head-on. I even managed to smile insolently.

"Is that what you meant by moving on? To do the deeds but not be reminded of them afterwards?"

A bunch of the most scintillating stars exploded in my field of vision, blocking out even the pain that followed in the wake of his hit for a moment. It took several seconds for my vision to clear again – and to see my lord standing right in front of me with an expression that could only be described as thunderstruck.

With considerable effort, I resisted the urge to put a hand to my abused cheek.

In a manner of speaking, he had torn out my heart with bare hands and ripped it to shreds and as a way of thanking him for it I had all but driven him to his death as sure as if I had put the blade to his neck myself, but…

Never once had one of us lifted a hand against the other. Never before had we actually resorted to direct, physical violence. I really must have gotten to him this time.

Kagetora lowered his still poised hand – an edgy movement, not at all like him. We were both staring into space as if thinking hard about what to say next.

Unsurprisingly, it was him who commanded me cool, imperious voice that betrayed nothing of the inner turmoil which he had expressed by hitting me: "Go to the cliff. Once the others arrive, bring them here."

I headed for the door without another word, forgetting even about bowing.

**Kagetora's POV**

The silence in the room after he had left was so absolute I might as well have gone deaf. For several minutes I was unable to do anything besides standing with my eyes closed, taking one deep breath after another. My heart was beating fast and agitated. The angry, spiteful voices – both Naoe's ad my own – from moments before still seemed to resonate in my ears and grow fainter only gradually.

When I opened my eyes to the empty room, only the slight burn of my palm reminded me of what had taken place earlier. I kneeled down on the floor in front of the fireplace, my stinging hand placed in my lap. I buried my face in the palm of the other one for a moment.

I had slapped him. I had actually slapped him with the flat of my hand like a maiden whose virtue had been called into question. I didn't need my enemies or Naoe himself to be ridiculed – I was providing for this myself and excellently so. This kind of behaviour was hardly appropriate for me. My father would have been ashamed.

_I _was ashamed. Not only of how I had handled this situation but of what had provoked my loss of control in the first place.

Naoe's words had stung so badly – they still did – that I had just snapped. The knowledge that he hadn't said what he did just to rile me up didn't help. He believed it. Or at least, he wasn't sure whether the rumours about me weren't true after all. And why shouldn't they be? From his point of view, it surely made perfectly sense if he hadn't been the only man caught in my web. Misery loves company, after all. Maybe he had looked at the men at Echigo and Kasugayama wondering upon which of them I might have bestowed the honour… While I had shuddered wih disgust at the mere thought of the touch of somebody that wasn't him.

_Why Naoe__?_ I agonized not for the first and probably not for the last time. _And why – so close to me? _What had my father had in mind when he had created that bond between us, the former enemies? If I hadn't know better I would have suspected Naoe to be a form of punishment meant for me, or maybe a touchstone.

He was a proud man. It wouldn't have been easy to command him under any circumstances. Under that dutiful and stoic bearing, he was a rebel… totally different from me. I had never revolted against what older men had set out for me, whether it was about sealing a contract or exorcising the unhappy dead. I had never had real power in any of my lives. The power I wielded – political, military or supernatural – had always been bestowed upon me by someone else. Borrowed, in other words. The more important it was for me to make the most of the measures of enforcing my will via the tools which I had at hand. There were things in life you just had to accept.

But Naoe didn't. Naoe couldn't just accept when he was wronged. He would demand for reasons, explanations, apologies. Without them he simply couldn't go on. He wouldn't stop bearing his grudge until I admitted that I had been at fault.

So, I reasoned with myself, which would be the cleverer move for me to make? Apologize for something I had neither planned nor done consciously, so he would be able to move on? Or refuse to apologize and keep him demanding one – and therefore by my side?

Oh, I knew that he had somewhat corrected his views on my leadership talents. He had seen first hand what I was capable of during the last decades. But part of his respect for me stemmed from his own inferior position which had been established by the fact that he had been the one tricked, the one who had lost to me in a way. If I admitted to my guilt, his pride would be restored. He needed me for that.

As long as he didn't get his missed-out on apology, he wouldn't leave. And I didn't want him to. It was as simple as that.

He wouldn't make the mistake of confronting me about it twice. He would keep gnawing at the affair, though. He couldn't just put it out of his mind. He'd be up to something. It was only a question of time before his blood had cooled down sufficiently for him to overthink his situation and contrive a way to get back at me. He'd think of something – and the gods help me if he caught me unawares with it.

My eyes narrowed. He wouldn't. There had been few people in my several lives who could stand up to me. Naoe wasn't the first to be disgruntled about my supposed supremacy. He just had a longer breath than most of them. He didn't forget a humiliation. With him, all my actions seemed to draw serious consequences somewhere in the future. Like watercirclets breaking forth from where a stone had been thrown into still water.

To think that this was the result of us for the first time being honest with each other. I closed my eyes, stifling a bitter laugh. Or had we been?

/\/

**Author's Note: **Does someone else believe that these two might be a lot happier if it weren't for their own low opinions on themselves?

Feedback is highly appreciated, as always.

**Next chapter:** Kagetora meets a ghost from his own past. You can take a guess, if you like :-)


	4. Chapter 3: Easier to Lie

**Disclaimer:** I don't own them, Kuwabara Mizuna does.

**Author's Note:** Look at this! It's an update! And it's been only two months! *laughs*

I know, I know… Please don't let yourself be discouraged if you stumble across this and see that it hasn't been updated in ages. I've no intentions of abandoning the story. It WILL be finished.

This chapter is inspired a little bit by the OVA subplot about Araki Murashige and his wife as well as by the Sayuri side story as translated by asphodel (who has recently started on the translation of vol. 6, check it out on her homepage ;-)).

This chapter is set about fifty years after the last one. All the yashashuu have died in the meantime and possessed new bodies. While the other members of the Meikai Uesugi Army are getting a bit more interested in the weird stuff that is going on between Naoe and Kagetora, we are being presented with a look into the past and an interesting aspect about the happenings of the _otate no ran_ is revealed…

Have fun :-)

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**Chapter 3: ****Easier to Lie**** (1712)**

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**Naoe's POV**

Many years had passed since I had last set my eyes on the forests and hills of Echigo. After my first death, I had been here only once, right after Kagekatsu's death. Still full of suspicion of his true intentions back then, I had followed Kagekatsu's adoptive brother who had become my lord only a few years ago. The town had changed almost beyond recognition since the extinction of the Uesugi when Tokugawa Ieyasu had given the province to the Masudaira family.

But here I was again.

Memory probably struck the man walking beside me, too, since he was unusually quiet. We were but a stone's throw away from where Kakizaki Haruie had met his first death by my very own hand. Yet what I best recalled from this day were Kagetora's slanting eyes meeting mine over his most trusted friend's dead body. I hadn't felt guilty about killing Haruie. He had been poised to assassinate Kagekatsu. If I weakened Kagetora's position in doing so, I couldn't have been more satisfied – or so I told myself.

The view was beautiful. White as snow, the large, soft-looking clouds were towering in the clear sky over the small town. The trees surrounding the district were only just beginning to change their colours. In Kenshin's time, autumn had been the favourite season of most of the townspeople who loved to gaze at the metamorphosing trees.

Would casting out old acquaintances, friends and allies feel very different from exorcising strangers? Would they recognize us and hate us for having been given a second chance?

"Naoe..." Haruie started in a low voice besides me.

I slowly turned my gaze around to meet my companion's. Inwardly, I cursed my lord as I never would have dared to do aloud for sending me here with Haruie of all people. He must have known what he was doing, that sooner or later the subject of what preceeded the _otate no_ _ran_ must arise.

"Is Kagetora-sama... somehow... avoiding you?"

That was what troubled him, then. I blinked. He didn't want to speak about my killing him at all.

He was right in fact. Kagetora was indeed going out of his way in this lifetime so he didn't have to spend time with me. It wasn't surprising that the others were catching on how tense relationships between us were. Still, Haruie seemed slightly embarrassed at asking me about personal matters that involved our lord.

Whenever we others spoke about Kagetora in his absence, it was in a reluctant way, As if we were doing something forbidden and there might be terrible consequences if we were caught doing it. As a person, our leader was an enigma not only to me. It would have been unthinkable for Haruie – or anyone else for that matter, even Irobe – to ever raise such a question to his face. So he was asking me instead whether there was a foundation for what he perceived to be ill humour between our lord and myself.

Of course, Kagetora couldn't avoid me completely. His father had entrusted his safety to me, after all. This required for us to spend a certain amount of time in each other's presence. But there was more to it. Kenshin-kō might have been the one who bound me to his son, but Kagetora was the one who was holding the chain. He wouldn't relax it even if he felt uncomfortable with me coming too close.

He had begun to keep our group closer together, though, so he wouldn't have to put up with me alone. Or at least this was what I suspected. He didn't offer this explanation himself, of course. And now, he had done this. He had sent me away with Haruie to check on the western grounds and kept Irobe by his side, instead.

When I didn't answer, Haruie looked at me thoroughly. "Did you say something that displeased him?"

I almost choked. I had said quite a lot of things the last time we were speaking in private to each other.

"Did he say something to displease _you_?" Haruie asked never taking his eyes of me.

Well, that too. It was still a weird question to ask. Maybe it was because of his empathic gift or because he of us all was closest to Kagetora, but somehow Haruie was on the right track.

"Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Well, you hardly ever talk to each other," he explained. "I was wondering... Maybe you finally did some talking and a few words fell that you would have rather kept to yourself."

This remark cut through me. All the more so, since I knew that Haruie wouldn't say such a thing just to spite me. He was being honest about how he perceived things and his assumptions were correct. There was no trust between Kagetora and myself.

How could there have been? My lord was a liar and a fraud. He possessed a heart of stone and a tongue like a dagger to match. Having to put up with my person and the task given to me by his father one way or the other, he was intending to make my job as hard as possible.

For reasons which had nothing to do with my personal orders, I didn't like the thought of him wandering around completely on his own, though. This place held a lot of memories, a lot of unresolved issues for us all.

Battlefields meant exorcising men – soldiers who couldn't accept defeat who would hurl insults at us and mourn their lost honour. Failures in death – like I had been one.

Dwellings on the other hand meant women and children, too. We had exorcised women before, of course, and it had always been very troublesome. When it came down to the hard facts, women usually had the better motives to bear grudges. One of the most important reason why they wouldn't allow themselves to move on was mourning for a child.

"Well?" Haruie wouldn't let me off the hook this quickly.

"You needn't have worried," I said calmly. "Everything is perfectly all right."

/\/

**Kagetora's POV**

Outwardly, I knew I was the epitome of tranquility, when I saw Naoe and Haruie off and headed into the opposite direction with Irobe. But all the while, I was entertaining thoughts along the lines of _. _My head was hurting with the effort of calming myself down. Once or twice Irobe cast me a worried look.

Wonderful. Now even the rest of my followers were picking up on the strange mood between Naoe and myself. Where before they had probably just assumed that we hadn't a lot to say to each other, it was now becoming more and more obvious that we hated each other's guts. I could only hope they would assign it to our having been on opposite sides during the _otate no ran. _

It was subtle still, hard to notice in fact, but Naoe was fighting me. And it was happening more and more often in this lifetime. He wasn't voicing his doubts, his objections – not yet, that is. But I could feel his dissent, his rebellious spirit moving restlessly behind his cold, observant eyes. He used his task as a guardian to keep close to me when it was perfectly clear to him that I currently wished to avoid the mere sight of him at all costs.

Memory of our last talk in private had been a millstone around my neck, but it was slowly receding into the background and made room for more recent incidents.

Sighing, I forced those gloomy thoughts out of my mind. I separated from Irobe after a short while and directed my horse towards the outer walls of the city. It was a mild, sunny autumn day. The cool air smelled of greenery and of the fertile soil that was typical for our home country. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for myself wandering these grounds again after all this time.

When I was little, I was firmly convinced that ghosts appear before you only at night time. I grew up to learn that some of the worst nightmares can haunt you in broad daylight, too.

I had done a lot of speculating during the last days about whose spirits I was likely to encounter here – we all had. There were enemies and people dear to each of us who had had a reason to join the brigades of the vengeful spirits and haunt this place – waiting for us.

From here I could also in the distance see the very place on this earth I was least keen to revisit. Samegao Castle.

A ghastly wind was shaking the branches over my head. The clear blue sky that had shown over Echigo all day suddenly darkened with clouds.

_She'__s here, _I thought.

In retrospect, I couldn't say for sure what had prompted me to go wandering on my own when I knew I was prone to meet her. Meet her attacks, that is. Quite possibly, though, I hadn't wanted anyone listening in on our conversation. Now I wasn't so sure anymore if that had been a good idea.

In death, the woman who had been my wife had changed. Or maybe the attributes a strict education had always tried to suppress only now were showing. Just like I Seienin had been brought up by elders who took temperamental fits as bad manners.

A few years into our marriage, she had confessed to me that when she couldn't bear her countenance anymore, she would take a horse in secrecy and ride to the cliffs a few miles away. There she would stand and scream her heart out until she had calmed down enough to show herself back at Kasugayama castle.

She didn't need to do this anymore. The air was trembling under her wrath.

"You are showing your face, Kagetora," she welcomed me, her disfigured features breaking into a gruesome smile. "You actually found the nerve to."

I remained silent. For a moment, only the howling wind that shook the trees could be heard.

Seienin looked around as if she needed to in order to find out what was going on. "I don't see any of your faithful retainers, but I don't doubt that they are not far off. News travel," she reminded me when I showed astonishment that she knew of my current profession. "Even under us spirits."

"If you know that much, you must know why I am here."

"I know what you believe to have come for. But you are here for my revenge, Kagetora. To answer for your deeds."

/\/

**Naoe's**** POV**

Before we separated to each walk a different part of the grounds, Haruie gave me a long scutinizing look and said: "Naoe, I believe we've been on the same side long enough for me to ask such a question." He paused. "Why did Kenshin-kō make you his son's guardian?"

When I was silent, he didn't add any explaining or apologetic comment. He didn't have to, bluntness was allowed here. It certainly had been one of Kenshin's weirder decisions and it was only naturally for the rest of the yashashuu to perceive it as such.

"He told you why, didn't he?" Haruie asked. "He told me why he chose me for the Army, so I assume it must have been the same with you others."

"Yes," I finally said. "He told me."

"And it made sense for you?"

I thought of Kagetora's fiery eyes, of his passion and determination, his calmness right before a battle and the way he would put a palm to his forehead when he was dead-tired, of Saburo's nightmares, his vulnerability, the glow of the setting sun on his skin and how I had decided to keep him close to me to avoid unpleasant incidents when he had first come to my camp. For a few heart-beats, all our differences, the power-struggles, the barely concealed animosity retreated into the background.

"Yes. It makes perfect sense."

Haruie nodded, still sceptical, but obviously deciding not to pry any further. "This is where we part ways, I believe."

And so we did. Haruie went on over the hills, I directed my steps into the woods. It was the worst of all days for me to be wandering on my own, I thought. My musing wouldn't allow me to find any peace or even concentrate on my task. Instead, they constantly returned to the crux of my existence.

Never before had I been so aware of someone holding power over me. Not just the power of ordering me around – I had grown up serving a daimyo as did everyone around me. You did your lords bidding and afterwards minded your own business. This was different.

I couldn't put my mind to rest. Thoughts of my inferior position accompanied me everywhere I went. I could never talk back. I couldn't bring myself to say that it was kind of reckless what he was doing, that the task given to me required for the two of us to stay together... Because it wasn't what I actually wanted him to recognize.

He must know himself that things between us were oddly upside down and hardly comparable to what they had been like when we first met. Maybe he felt this, too, and that was why he went out of his way to keep my under his thumb or snub me on a rotating basis. On our first encounter, he had looked up to me – or at least been forced to act as if so – and I hadn't learned to perceive him as a threat to my equilibrium.

No. That wasn't right, either. Something about him had threatened me right from the start when I had only known him as Saburo. Somehow he had challenged me by just being there, just being who he was. But I was able to suppress such thoughts as long as our positions had been reversed with him being obliged to follow my orders.

I stopped in my tracks. Was that why it bothered me so much that he held such an influence over me? Because I had been able to order him around when I first met him and in a way assumed this to be the natural order of things?

The moment I thought of it, I knew it to be true. Or at least part of the truth.

Abruptly, soft giggles erupted somewhere in my vicinity and shook me from my thoughts. Someone was standing underneath a small group of conifer saplings. It was a child clad in the robes of a noble family. I couldn't yet decide on whether it was a boy or a girl.

"You look like you're in deep conversation with yourself", the child had me know.

I blinked, slightly at a loss for words. It seemed that I had found one of the spirits who were dwelling in Echigo after all. It was behaving strangely, though.

The child cocked his head to one side and studied me intently. "I know you," it said, stepping closer.

I raised a brow. "Is that so?" My little visitor was male, that much I could detect now. His dark, narrow eyes were glued to my face.

"Yes. I saw you at Echigo, sometimes."

At Echigo? I was startled. "Do you belong to the Uesugi?"

He stopped before me. "Didn't we both once?" He was small, his head barely reached above my hip. I assumed that he had been seven or eight when he died. It made my heart sink.

"I've been waiting for you," he continued. Then he corrected himself, "Of course, I didn't know it would be you, but since you're here now and you're obviously alive, you must be that person."

Now all of this didn't exactly make a lot of sense, I thought. "You were waiting for me?" I asked, hoping that he would elaborate. Part of me could hardly believe that I was making conversation with a _spirit._ I had to admit, though, that I was curious to where this would lead.

He giggled all of a sudden. "You are the first living person I have spoken to ever since I died."

I almost choked at hearing him refer to his own demise so casually. "But surely, there must be other spirits here?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Lots of spirits. There was a lot of fighting in the past." He blinked at me. "That is why you are here, isn't it?"

"Yes." Without really knowing why, I kneeled down before him so we could look into each other's eyes without him getting a stiff neck. Or whatever it was that happened spirits when they stayed in a seemingly uncomfortable position for too long. "I belong to an army of people who have dedicated themselves to putting the spirits of the murdered and desperate to rest. It was founded by Uesugi Kenshin, have you heard of him?" I wondered in which time this child had lived.

A grin spread across the boy's features. "I would say so. It is good that you are finally here. I shall take you to meet another spirit. Come." He dashed from where we had been standing.

I got up. "Wait, you want to lead me there?"

"I just said, didn't I?" He gave me a look as if silently pondering on whether I might be a bit slow in the uptake. "Come now," he gestured for me to follow him. "We have to hurry a bit."

Terribly beautiful hands the little runt had, I couldn't help realizing as I closed up to him.

/\/

**Kagetora's POV**

"You used to listen to me," Seienin said, sounding at once wistful and vitriolic. "You listened to me in everything but one. When it could have been our salvation, our son's salvation!"

I closed my eyes. So this was it, then. Not Donanmaru's death in particular, the fact that I had sent him off with Norimasa to meet Kagekatsu's men. I had been convinced that even if my brother refused my surrender he would keep his nephew safe and take him to Kasugayama where Seienin had been staying with the rest of our children.

But I had been mistaken. Seienin had killed our two daughters and then herself when news of Donanmaru's death had reached Kasugayama. I had equally committed suicide a short while afterwards when Kagekatsu's troops invaded Samegao.

"Nothing," Seienin cried, "none of it would have happened if you had just killed _him_!"

For that was what she had beseeched me to do. Have Kagekatsu's right hand man killed and thereby decide the war in our favour.

I remembered. How upset she had been when I made clear that I wasn't going to do it. It was the right thing, she said, the smart thing, did I believe that Kagekatsu would hesitate to do the same if things were the other way round?

Seienin's hands found their way into her losely hanging hair as if she wanted to tear it out even now. "Why couldn't you do it, Kagetora? Why couldn't you just order his death and be done with?"

I could feel my heart beat strongly and painfully in my chest. "I didn't want to commit a cold-blooded murder. We were winning, then."

Seienin broke into unhappy laughter. It quickly turned shrilly, and it pierced my mark and bone. She shook her head.

"Can you not be honest with me even now?"

I flinched.

Her grief-stricken features now displayed an expression that could only be described as unbelieving consternation. She threw her hands up in exasperation. "You men all believe we women are just blind and deaf. I knew, Kagetora! I knew all about it."

She couldn't mean… I froze at these words. Seienin noticed and smiled bitterly at me. "The other ladies would ask me what it was like to be married to you and I knew that they were asking out of jealousy because their husbands' eyes were always drawn to you, but Naoe Osen-no-kata… she had more than that."

I could feel all blood leave my face.

"Yes, that's right," Seienin practically sneered at me, although she was too upset to make a good job of it. "She knew, too. All that drinking, the melancholia, she said that even his way of making love to her had changed after he had met you…"

They had spoken about us. I could hardly believe my ears. They had gotten it all wrong, of course, but the mere fact that they had somehow caught up on it was disturbing.

"You're still mistaken," I said. "Things were over when I married you."

Tear streams had engraved themselves on her once round face. For a moment she looked all forlorn and lost. It made me wish I could have reached out to her. But spirits can not be touched by the living.

"Yes," she said, still shaking her head. "Yes, I believe you. But you still cared about him enough to spare his life. Just like you wanted to spare my brother. If only –" Her hands were in her hair again. "If only I could have plucked up the courage as Haruie did and proceed to action myself. None of it would have happened!"

With an anguished cry, she finally stroke for me. The raw power sped through me and made me cry out in agony before I tumbled to the ground. Kneeling, I looked up at my wife.

She was right, I thought numbly. While there had never been any proof that Naoe had been actually involved in Donanmaru's murder, a situation in which I had sent our son away probably never would have arisen if it hadn't been for Naoe's attack on Samegao Castle.

"That man," she said. "When our lord died and he wouldn't let you pass – the way he spoke to you was so full of hatred that I knew… it couldn't all stem only from his resentment against a born Hojo becoming the lord of the Uesugi. He had other reasons. Real reasons, not just politics."

She could kill me, I thought. Her powers were that strong, stronger than any other female spirit's that I had ever encountered.

"You owed me loyalty." Her eyes flashed with a hatred over a hundred years old. "But you spit on that. You chose to betray us, both me and your son. And for what?"

The second blast hit me. Spots danced before my eyes. It seemed to take much longer for the pain to subside this time.

"I didn't," I panted, trying to catch my breath. "I didn't betray either of you. But," I looked up at her from where I was lying on the ground, "it is true that I didn't want him to be murdered."

The mere thought of spilling his blood had been excruciating for me. Once, for a couple of days – for a few precious _hours_, Naoe Nobutsuna had been closer and dearer to me than any other person. I couldn't order his death. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Would I have done it if I had known…?

Electricity crackled in the air. I could feel Seienin summoning her powers again. Her gaze was fixed on me.

"You loved him," she whispered. "You loved that man more than you loved me or our children."

Mechanically, I closed my eyes and shook my head as if I could keep the essence of what she said from reaching me like this. I felt as if the very foundations of the life that I had led as Seienin's husband, Donanmaru's father and Kenshin's heir were giving way underneath me.

"Speak up!" she screamed at me, raising both her arms above her head. Small flashes of lightning erupted from her fingertips. "Not even now you can admit it?"

I wanted to tell her that these two things weren't comparable, that the love I felt for her was different from my infatuation with Naoe back then, but that didn't mean it was weaker or less important for me. I wanted to explain to her how he had suffered because of me, how I had betrayed him, how I had refused to understand what I was doing until it was too late, but no words came.

It didn't matter anyway.

She had let her powers loose.

/\/

**Naoe's POV**

Never having had any children of my own, I can't say that I'm especially good with them. But the little runt couldn't be bothered, it seemed. He wouldn't stop chatting me up while we made our way through the woods.

Only when I pried for more information on our destination, he became tight-lipped.

"Where are you leading me?" I asked looking ahead to where he had stopped and turned around, waiting for me to follow. Being a ghost, he could move from one place to another much faster than I could.

"To where my parents are."

So far, he had only spoken of his mother being a vengeful spirit – although he didn't use that expression, of course.

"Your mother," I started. "What is she so angry about?"

"My death, for example," the small boy said matter-of-factly. "Her own. What my father and my uncle did to each other… and to the people of the Uesugi."

A decidedly unpleasant feeling settled in my stomach. "How did you die, if you don't mind me asking?"

He stopped and looked at me. "From a sword," he quietly confrmed my suspicions. When I remained silent, he offered a bit more information on the circumstances of his demise: "My father sent me away from his side because he believed that I would be safer that way when he was being attacked. It wasn't his fault," he added in a whisper.

"Your mother wants to take revenge on your murderers?"

He hesitated. "No, it's actually my father whom she holds most responsible."

"Your father…"

"Yes." His voice was grim. "She knew he would come here sooner or later. She's been waiting all these years. And so have I," he added in a conversational tone. "I couldn't very well leave her on her own, could I?"

"No," I agreed, lost in my own thoughts. "That's right."

If this youngster was who I believed him to be, Kagetora was in danger. From his own wife, nonetheless. It was high time for him to face his demons, I thought grimly. He never spoke of his family. Never once had he even asked me about the day his son died, although he probably assumed that I had been present. He had buried that memory.

Unlike she had, I came to understand. My feelings towards Seienin-hime were mixed and always had been. Kagetora's betrothal to her had been a done deal when I had met him and implemented only a few weeks after that. I knew she and Kagetora hadn't been a love match – almost no married couple was in our day and class. So it hadn't exactly felt like she had stolen him from me since he had finished things between us himself before they had ever started, but nevertheless…

She had what I had wanted for myself.

I imagined her laying hand on herself from the sheer grief of losing her son and not being able to convince her brother to accept her husband's surrender. Being too wounded, too desparate and just too full of hatred to die a normal death. She had become a vengeful spirit instead, directing her anger and pain towards Kagetora whom she had once loved enough to approach Kagekatsu herself.

In the child's face I saw nothing of my master. He took after his mother. Except maybe when he smiled as he did now, watching me having to close up to him again. Odd, I thought, since Kagetora was smiling rarely…

Looking ahead, the boy's features promptly darkened. "He's with her," he murmured.

From between the trees directly in front of us I could see cascades of light breaking forth. A wood glade? I could hear voices now, someone was crying out.

_Kagetora…_

"We have to hurry, quick!" the boy urged me and shot from my side. With ease, he flew towards the source of the energy and the voices.

I, too, broke into a run.

/\/

**Kagetora's POV**

There had been not only one, but a number of possibilities for me to counteract Seienin's attacks or strike for her myself. I had let them pass, knowing that I couldn't harm my late wife who had suffered so much because I had made the wrong decisions in the past. All I could do here was quietly accept and prepare myself.

For a blast that never came.

I had pressed my eyes close as if incapable of watching her bring it all to an end. Terror must have made me deaf for a moment, I concluded right before establishing that in fact I _did_ hear someone talking.

"Don't, _okaa-san_," a young voice rang out firmly. "It's not father's fault."

_Here we go,_ I thought dizzily._ I'm going mad. _

"Kagetora-sama!"

Now this voice was just as easy to place as the other one had been. I slightly turned my head to see Naoe come running over the glade.

My wife whispering the name of our son brought my attention back to whom else was right in front of me. When I hadn't trusted my ears before, I could hardly believe my eyes now.

He looked every bit as he had when I had seen him for the last time. And he was smiling at me – smiling in a guileless and innocent way as if nothing had ever happened to him to destroy that basic trust of his in adults and the world in general.

Just like me, he had never been a sickly child, but energetic and sinewy. But unlike me who had grown up in a temple, he hadn't lived on a diet of half-cooked rice and raw vegetables. I had always been slender by comparison with my elder brothers; nourishment at Soun Temple during the first years of my life had ensured this. He would have grown into a strong man, I was sure of it.

"Kagetora-sama."

"Stay away," I shot at Naoe. She would attack him; by now she must have recognized him. I had to take care of this myself and immediately so.

Never – not in my wildest nightmares – had I ever come up with a situation like this. But I was ready now where I hadn't been a short while ago. Maybe Naoe's presence reminded my of my duty. Or maybe I was worried that he was to suffer for it if I couldn't go through with it.

I got to my feet. Donanmaru was watchting me intently, still without the slightest sign of fear. They had arrived here together, I thought, my eyes flickering between Naoe and my son's spirit. Donanmaru had led him here…

Seienin exorted another stroke. This time it was directed at Naoe who hurriedly erected a kekkai around both me an himself.

Without thinking, I directed an energy blast of my own towards her. Seinin's figure became weaker, but she wasn't defeated. The appearance of our son had startled her for a moment, but she had quickly reminded herself of what she was here for. Now I had to do the same.

She had known what I had come for from the start, after all. This was my task, the powers it required having been bestowed upon me by my father, her uncle. I was to use them even against members of our own family.

There would be time later to ask myself whether that made me a monster.

"_BAI!"_

It was me who initiated Seienin's exorcism. But before I ever got as far as intonating the mantra, Donanmaru moved himself between us.

"Was he there?" I asked. "When you died?" I didn't have to say whom I was talking about.

Donanmaru shook his head. He leaned back against the ethereal body of his mother as he had sometimes done when the three of us had all been alive and together. His eyes were blinking up at me almost expectantly. And so I held my gaze directed at my son as I spoke.

"Noumakusamanda bodanan baishiramandaya sowaka…"

I thought that I could see him smiling. He forgave me.

_Farewell. _

"_Chōbuku!"_

Their departure was blinding, an eruption of raw energy that struck me to my knees. I looked at their disappearing figures un

Naoe instantly got down on the ground in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Kagetora-sama!" His concerned frenzy stood in direct contrast to my own numbness and only slowly moving thoughts. "Are you hurt?"

I wasn't, thanks to him. For a moment, I felt grateful that he hadn't tried to help me with this exorcism. This had been my task, my burden. I looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, my mind still occuppied with what my son's spirit had told me. "You weren't there," I murmured. "You weren't involved after all."

"When he died?" He slowly shook his head. "If I had been there, none of it would have happened." His words eerily echoed what Seienin's spirit had spat at me before.

"I never asked you about that day, but I…" I broke off.

His eyes had grown very sad, very weary. "Do you really believe I could have harmed a child of yours?"

I was shaking with relief, I suddenly realized. Did it affect me that much to find out that he was innocent? Part of it must be fatigue and anguish about the true loss of my family, too.

He picked me off the ground. It was beyond me how I always managed to end up in bodies that were quite a bit lighter and smaller than Naoe's. Maybe I owed this to the agreement between him and my father? It should be easier to protect someone smaller…

For example, you could put them on horseback when they were too drained to climb up there themselves. This rapidly brought me to my senses.

"Take the reins," I growled. "I'm in no condition to ride." It pained me to admit it but there was nothing much I could do about it. Even holding my head up required almost more energy than I had at my disposal right now.

Ignoring my order, Naoe came up behind me and put an arm around my waist. "I shall," he merely said and took the reins from my hands. I was leaning against his chest like this, too tired to try and sit up straight. I was sure he could feel it when my whole body went rigid with dissent.

"Pardon me, Kagetora-sama," he said close to my ear in a falsely measured tone that left no doubt with me that he was acting like he did only to antagonize me. "But I would never forgive myself if you were to fall of the horse."

I wanted nothing more than to turn around and tell him where exactly to stick his presumptions, but my physical exhaustion effectively interfered with my plans. _Just go on like this and you'll see where it gets you,_ I thought grumpily but there was a hint of bad conscience lying underneath. He had certainly done well today. It easily could have been my last exorcism if it hadn't been for Naoe showing up just in time.

They were truly dead now. Seienin and Donanmaru were no longer in this world. My wife's parting gift – the surety that she had known of my lapse – left me in an uncomfortable situation to deal with.

Had he heard? I thought feverishly. He was being unusually gentle, so what had I done to deserve this? Could he have heard about how I had stopped my men from murdering him at the eve of the _otate no ran_? And understood that it was my weakness, my affection for him – or what was still left of it by that time – which had cost me the war and eventually my own life?

I didn't think I could bear the disgrace if he knew. Was he filing the information away to throw it into my face at the next best opportunity when we were fighting and he was trying to get the upper hand?

His arms surrounded me, their warmth seeping right through my clothes. This was only the second time ever he was holding me like this, but it had the very same effect on me as it had then. Calm seized me, overcoming even the hot feeling in my stomach.

It hadn't been his fault. He was innocent.

/\/

**Naoe's POV**

He fought, but it was in vain from the start. I knew how he hated having someone sit behind him on horseback, or maybe it was just me he couldn't endure in this position. Either way he would have to deal with it this time. I rather liked having him there. He _felt _so much warmer that he _behaved_ towards me – or anyone else for that matter.

The slowly rocking pace of the horse had done one more thing to make him fall asleep. After all, he had been hit by Seienin-hime's powers several times. His loved ones had departed from this world for good. He was bound to be weary.

_That's it, _I thought with only slight irony when I felt him relaxing against me after a considerable while, his breathing calm and steady. _You weren't afraid to fall asleep in my arms then, either, were you? _

His head was leaning against my shoulder. I was holding him around the waist with one arm and held the reins with the hand of the other one. It felt unreasonably pleasant not to be held at a distance anymore after all this time.

And only a few moments ago, he had also referred to me quite normally. As if there actually wasn't that much bad blood between us. Some of the iron rings that seemed to constrict my ribcage these days had fallen away during that short exchange of words. It was frightening at times how he was able to unpick my resolutions without even trying.

Was that why I shied open rebellion? Because I was somewhat convinced that I wouldn't have gone through with it?

If I challenged him and he stared me down with those penetrating, imperious eyes of his – what would I say?

Right now he was much easier to deal with than most of the time, I thought as I listened to his quiet breathing and cocked my head to be able to look at his sleeping face. In doing so, I brushed against his hair with my cheek. Indeed, there were moments when I could completely let go of my resentment, my inner disputes, my craving for recognition and everything else that blinded me.

The truth was – I didn't just respect him.

I admired him.

Today moreso than ever. I admired him for the pain he had gone through today – a pain he should have endured a long time ago by all rights – without breaking down.

Part of me _wanted _to be his supporter, his servant, his guardian. It only made sense for the first person who had ever impressed me enough to develop an interest in them that went beyond opportunistic power games to also become the first to inspire real devotion in me.

Except that my pride couldn't let it happen. For the very same reasons that would have made a surrender possible.

Without really knowing why I repeated the motion and let my skin touch his hair again. The black silk felt every bit as soft as it had the first time.

/\/

**Author's Note:**These two are killing me, they really are... I can't decide who's more confused at the moment, Naoe or Kagetora.

Btw, does anyone know the real name of Kagetora's spouse? I believe "Seienin" is a Buddhist name that was given to her after her death, is that right?

Thanks a lot to everyone who's still with me :-) The kind reviews/PMs/encouragement I received recently certainly helped to get this finished. Am looking forward to hear what you thought of this one :-)


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